Need Help understanding caloric in vs. out

Welcome! Read this: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1080242-a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants

Here's a Fitbit 101 I wrote in another thread:

When you set up your MFP account, you specified an activity level: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/account/change_goals_guided MFP used your answer, plus your age, sex & height, to estimate how many calories you burn every day (your TDEE). Then you set your weight-loss goal, and MFP subtracted the appropriate deficit to calculate your daily calorie goal.

Once you link an activity tracker to your MFP account (via the "Apps" tab at the top of every page), you start getting calorie adjustments. If your tracker says you burned more calories than MFP estimated, you get a positive adjustment (meaning more calories to eat). If you enable negative calorie adjustments and you burn less than the MFP estimate, you will lose calories. (But negative calorie adjustments will never drop your daily calories below 1,200.)

I wasn't losing much weight when I got my first activity tracker. At first, the adjustments didn't seem very accurate. But they got better, almost as if the system was "learning" my routine. It took a lot of trial & error to find the settings that worked best for me. But then everything clicked. I changed my MFP settings from sedentary to lightly active (even though I have a desk job), and now my adjustments are pretty minimal. And I'm losing!

I find my step goal really motivating. If I get home at night and see I'm thisclose to making goal, I'll walk around the block. A little bit more every day really adds up.

this can be so frustrating!

but help us help you. can you describe how you get a meal together? do you cook? do you weigh things before or after cooking?

You will get advice from others about the weight gain and eating, but I just wanted to say regarding what you said here:

I recently joined a gym 30 days ago, and couldn't use an elliptical yet, and could only walk the treadmill for 20 minutes at a time. I've now gotten so that I am using an elliptical for 45 minutes as fast as I can.

GREAT JOB!!!!!! Going from *only* being able to walk the treadmill for 20min to pushing it hard on the elliptical for 45min PLUS lifting weights is a HUGE gain in fitness!!! You should be very proud of your increased strength and endurance. Keep up the good work!

That 700 calorie elliptical burn is really, at best, 350 calories.

That 700 calorie elliptical burn is really, at best, 350 calories.

True...

Also OP, if you're not using a food scale for pretty much anything that has a weight as an option for serving and measuring anything else, I can guarantee you that you are underestimating your intake. Calorie counting is about being as precise as possible. Here's a bit of over simplification, but general understanding...

You don't have to burn off every single calorie with exercise...the vast majority of your daily "burn" and thus your daily calorie requirements are just to keep you alive...this is your BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate). For the average male, BMR is generally between 1,800 - 1,900 calories...average female is 1,300 - 1,400 calories. Essentially, your body would "burn" these calories if you were sleeping and did nothing else...these are the calories your bodies "burns" while pumping your heart and working your lungs and other organs, etc.

After that you have what is known as your NEAT (Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis)...this is just your day to day stuff...crawling out of bed...brushing your teeth...driving to work...cooking...cleaning...walking around the office, etc. Being a teacher you likely have a fairly high NEAT as you would be on your feet quite a bit. A person's NEAT generally represents the second largest component of their calorie requirements.

Finally, you have your EAT (Exercise Activity Thermogenesis). For most active individuals, EAT represents only about 10-15% of their daily calorie requirements...a very active individual would be slightly more and obviously an athlete would/could be substantially more...but the average Joe or Jane who goes and gets their fitness on a regular basis...looking at about 10-15%. This is why it is so inefficient to try to create a calorie deficit with just exercise...it is far more efficient to create your calorie deficit with your diet...which is what MFP does.

On that note, you have to understand how this tool works. Other calculators will include some estimate of your exercise activity in your activity level...thus those calculators will have some estimate of the calories that would be required to fuel your EAT and a cut would be taken from your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). It would look like this...BMR + NEAT + EAT = TDEE. From your estimated TDEE, one of those other calculators will then take a cut...often a % but also you could deduct 500 calories per day to lose 1 Lb per week or double that to lose 2 Lbs per week (highly dependent on how much you have to lose).

MFP works a little different in that MFP doesn't include your EAT in your activity level...MFP is a NEAT method calculator...what this means is that exercise is NOT included in your activity level and is accounted for after the fact when you log that activity...thus you get extra calories to eat back and fuel that activity. The catch here is that you have to be conservative in your burn estimate...and most people substantially overestimate their burn because they do as you did and just use a number from the MFP data base and assume it's correct.

Be mindful that your 700 calorie burn for 45 minutes of elliptical is highly inflated...I know this from personal experience. Its is incredibly difficult to sustain a level of effort for any lengthy period of time as to burn much more than about 10 calories per minute...you may burn slightly more if you are heavier but not much. The problem is that there are just too many variables for a database to be very accurate...another problem is people's perceived level of effort...they put "vigorous effort" because they're out of shape and the exercise was tiring for them...but in reality, the database or calculator is assuming "vigorous effort" by a fit individual and/or athlete.

I think I still need a little help understanding why am I continuing to gain a little weight while I am working out, lifting weights, tracking my calories, eating clean food, etc. Being new to exercising - and I truly am -[...]

You are building muscles, that's why you gain also weight. If you weigh yourself daily entering your weight there http://www.myfitnesspal.com/measurements/check_in and by watching the diagram which is provided at http://www.myfitnesspal.com/reports you will see its a constant up and down. In my case [ I don't log it there ] it goes always first down, then it stacks a few days on this level, it goes up again [muscle gain], stays there then it goes down again. It's always a 700 grams to 1.2 kilo ratio.

The OP is very unlikely to be building muscle in a deficit. Any newbie gains they might be seeing wouldn't be enough to offset the fat loss that should be happening as well.

It's possible you're seeing some water retention after starting the new workout program (sore muscles hoard water to help in the repair process, which temporarily causes a gain on the scale) but after 30 days of routine I'd be surprised if you're still seeing that.

The burns & calorie counts are only estimates. Weight loss takes a whe lot of trial & error to find what works for you.

That 700 calorie elliptical burn is really, at best, 350 calories.

If the machine asks you for your weight and has calorie counter go off that, not MFP.

However I burn 700 calories in 45-50 mins on an eliptical. I have it on a hill programme, high resistance, I run quickly and I am still very overweight (lugging the weight around burns more).

Use an HRM to figure out how many calories you burn in and out of the gym. Don't use gym equipment or MFP to figure out calories out. As they are not accurate.