heart rate monitor for base line calories

janjanorama
janjanorama Posts: 19 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi All,

this is my first post, so go easy! I am 30 yo female 5'8 currently 192 lbs (starting weight 200 in November) I recently quit weight watchers as it was making me obsessive about my weight and food.

I'm just looking for a little feedback. I have set my w/l goal at 1lb a week and have been given a target caloric intake of 1560. I've started going to the gym 3/4 times a week and have included a good bit of weight lifting into my routine, along with some spinning and some hiit (battle ropes, sled pushes and pulls, and kettlebells).
My problem is that I don't seem to be getting anywhere. most of the weight I've lost is from my time in Weight watchers, and while my body composition is changing. (I weigh myself once a week in the chemist and get a print out of body comp, but its like I'm just trading pounds between my fat mass and my fat free mass each week). I know muscle weighs more than fat, but takes up less space. But I was down to 162 lbs 2 years ago,I was doing much more cardio then and less weights, but my eating wasn't great. I'm just frustrated at the lack of progress I'm making.

Anyway I've rambled on. I wondering if I wear my heart rate monitor for a full day, will that give me an accurate baseline for my daily calorie needs? I can then set the target calories for mfp along those lines. I'm just worried that the target given to me is too high.

I'd appreciate any feedback!

Replies

  • asciiqwerty
    asciiqwerty Posts: 565 Member
    Well done on your loss so far.

    LAck of weight loss is usually due to over-estimating excercise and/or underestimating calorie consumption (including drinks and fruits and "healthy stuff")

    No monitoring system is perfect - they are all estimates (including that body comp % at the chemist)

    Mass is mass - muscle isn't heavier than fat - just denser. so you may be loosing inches rather than lbs.

    I prefer muscle to fat, but if your goal is weight loss its possible that your deficit isn't set right.
    From looking at your diary - you seem to be logging about 600 cals aday from excercise which seems quite a lot - and worth checking if it's right. Many users choose not to eat back all of their calories earned from excercise becasue most estimates are generous.

    The first thing that occurs to me is: what activity level did you set in your target calorie calculation, if you included your excercise in that - then when you log is seperately you are double counting.
  • janjanorama
    janjanorama Posts: 19 Member
    Thanks for that, I'll have to go and have a look at how I've set up my goals as I can't remember. Can't believe I might have been double eating my exercise!! that does make sense, as I tend to lose weight on weeks I don't go to the gym (twisted my ankle and didn't go at all last week and lost 2 lbs!) DAMN! I suppose it better to know now rather than later! :embarassed:
  • asciiqwerty
    asciiqwerty Posts: 565 Member
    the other common mistake is not measuring and logging everything we consume including stuff that we might consider healthy like fruit and stuff that we drink

    i noticed some days you aren't logging water - and drinking lots of water does help - you must be drinking something :)

    it is also recommended to check and review your goals every 2kg or so, as yout BMR willl change as you lose weight, also the number of calories that you burn doing exactly the same excercise will also reduce as you loose weight

    the days that you'r logging fully - you seem to have a lot of round numbers, so i wonder are you weighing everything you eat - or are you estimating based on standard protions, i go through phases with this - but i always gain or lose less when i'm in a guessing phase
  • bugaha1
    bugaha1 Posts: 602 Member
    Your diary and exercises looks a lot like my daughter's, and her trainer looked at her diary and changed a few things. The top thing he changed was doubling her protein without going over daily calories. This actually kick started a weight loss after being stuck for three months.
  • slk_5555
    slk_5555 Posts: 177 Member
    Hi,

    We have similar stats as i'm 5ft7 and 190lb although I'm 36:-( I also did WW for quite some time.

    I found on WW I was scared to eat weekly points, so I was effectively eating 1200 cals a day - when I started with My Fitness Pal (MFP) most people advised me that 1200 was very low. If you recently quit WW do you know roughly how many cals you were on? You may find that if you increased your calories on MFP very quick - it might take a while for your body to react and start loosing again. I increased calories over a 4 week period from 1200 - 1400 - 1600. It took about 4 weeks for me top start loosing again, at this point I was eating 1650 plus I eat back about 1/2 of my exercise cals.

    Just like with WW I still have to weight everything I eat. Also I find MFP is very high on exercise calories - I bought a fitbit flex to get a more accurate estimate of calories burned. Just be careful because if MFP over estimates you exercise cals & then you eat them all back - you could be over eating.

    Will send a friend request seeing as we are in similar situation, but don't feel obliged to add me;-)
  • janjanorama
    janjanorama Posts: 19 Member
    Thanks everyone, thats a good point about increasing cals when coming over from ww. Initially when I started weights I was so hungry I needed to eat all my exercise cals (btw I don't trust mfp for the exercise cals I use my hrm) but thats evening out now. I might stop logging my exercise cals in mfp altogether and just keep them in my training journal, so I'm not tempted to eat them, will defo be upping the protein, as I do tend to eat quite a carby diet. Started making my own clean rice pudding to keep me off the chocolate, and it's nearly as addictive!

    Slk_5555 I'm so glad to find someone simillar to me! I thought everyone was teeny tiny (height wise) here I kept thinking how do these people survive on 1200cal!!
  • kadamson223
    kadamson223 Posts: 7 Member
    Last year I was working out pretty regularly, but was verrry slow going, but started up again about a month ago and lost 7 lbs my first week! (probably just water weight, but I've kept it off!) The only real difference for me is that I started drinking the 8 cups of water (at least) that is recommended. I keep a bottle of water next to the sink and chug it as soon as I get out of bed, there's 2 cups right there. If I haven't drank another by lunch, I chug another bottle. I usually drink about 3 cups of water during my workout, and then another cup or two with dinner. It really helps, I can tell you that. I also do not eat my workout calories back, I was doing that at the beginning and did not lose a pound until I adjusted that. Good luck!!

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