Want to use MFP correctly.

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  • mcafeekevin
    mcafeekevin Posts: 46 Member
    Get a heart rate monitor if you can, they are more accurate than MFP but I highly doubt the difference in what MFP says and what you do is really the reason you hit a slight plateau. My bet is your body is adjusting and to give it another few weeks on proper calorie intake and adjust from there. If you haven't exercised much before your muscles are probably soaking up water so watch sodium levels.

    During the day, how do you feel? Are you tired, get dizzy often (especially during workouts)? It is really common for people to gain weight when they start exercise from a sedentary lifestyle. You will see people on extreme programs like Insanity and you see 2 main questions... Why does my back hurt so much? And, It has been a month, why am I not seeing results? The body is adjusting to keep up and as long as you are not dizzy or feeling sick you should be ok, but I would still eat properly. A lot of people like to say "You are gaining muscle now and that weighs more than fat", this is simply not the case, the body is not putting on that much muscle that fast... maybe 2 lbs of muscle a month if lucky. It is mostly just water and glycogen storages.
  • levitateme
    levitateme Posts: 999 Member

    He's logging "MFP's exercise burns" so those are too high. If he's inaccurate logging food + adding too many exercise calories then he's not losing because he's not in a deficit.

    Without knowing what he's logging as exercise, flat out saying they are inflated is flat out wrong.

    He's logging walking - one of the most accurate ones if he's really doing that pace the entire time.

    Formula for walking calorie burn are more accurate than HRM actually.
    http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/774337-how-to-test-hrm-for-how-accurate-calorie-burn-is

    And strength training, if correctly applied to lifting weights is based on good studies of the same and pretty accurate.

    The only problem is logging the daily activities like cleaning and such, but is so small a burn it's not wiping out the deficit that would have been there.

    It's the application of the database entry that most get wrong, just like logging food. Did you really walk 3 mph the whole 40 min for instance, or did you time a 1/4 mile section on city block, or that's what the treadmill eventually got up to, ect?
    Or was weight lifting really vigorous the whole 20 min, or was there 5 min of distracted talking?

    I've seen more people with correctly calibrated HRM's (not cheap Polars) comment the database entries are right on or low in comparison.

    He's not burning 500 calories in 30 minutes. I burn about 250-300 in 30 mins with my HR at 95% my max. We can debate whether or not the burns in the database are correct over and over but they are mostly inaccurate.

    ETA: Reading comprehension. I didn't realize OP wasn't lamenting no weight loss.

    OP: Get a kitchen scale. Go to scooby's and calculate TDEE-20%. Eat what it tells you, and don't log exercise burns (log it as 1 calorie burned). This is the best advice I can give anyone on this site.
  • gieshagirl
    gieshagirl Posts: 102 Member
    You have 169lbs left to lose.

    You say you want to use MFP correctly, but you're not.


    1200 is too little
    1800 is too little

    2500-3000 is about right
  • gieshagirl
    gieshagirl Posts: 102 Member
    this is so backwards from what I was taught....but they are correct. I shot myself into starvation mode and my metabolism sunk like a rock....lots of water and use the tools.
  • heybales
    heybales Posts: 18,842 Member
    He's not burning 500 calories in 30 minutes. I burn about 250-300 in 30 mins with my HR at 95% my max. We can debate whether or not the burns in the database are correct over and over but they are mostly inaccurate.

    ETA: Reading comprehension. I didn't realize OP wasn't lamenting no weight loss.

    OP: Get a kitchen scale. Go to scooby's and calculate TDEE-20%. Eat what it tells you, and don't log exercise burns (log it as 1 calorie burned). This is the best advice I can give anyone on this site.

    It is impossible for you to be attempting to relate your burn to his, unless you weigh exactly the same amount.
    And if you can do 95% of true HRmax for 30 min - your stat for HRmax on your HRM is incorrect, you aren't holding to any 95% for that long.

    Just looked as several of his workouts logged - perhaps you are going by his initial post only claiming 500 calories in 30-45 min, but no reference to what the workout was.
    But actually looking at diary shares a different story.

    368 lbs walking 3 mph for 20 min - 182 cal.

    Read that link I provided on the accuracy of walking/running formula and use this. 193 cal.
    http://www.exrx.net/Calculators/WalkRunMETs.html

    Mighty close. And if you are lighter you should be a whole lot less, no matter what your HR says.

    Strength training logged is very correctly small too.

    For the stuff he is logging, database is great. He may move on to something more undescriptive in the future (like calisthenics) and have to worry about it then.

    But that's why claiming the database is wrong without looking at what is being referenced is just not true.

    Oh yeah, if you are using that HRM with HRmax lower than reality as setting, and you use it for weight lifting - it's really inflated for calorie burn. Maybe you don't, perhaps you know.
    I just know the most adamant proclaimers I've seen of the database being wrong happen to be using the cheaper Polar's for the wrong exercise and claiming it must be accurate, for the mere fact it's different and lower.

    Edit - forgot to add. Per my lab tested VO2max and all data points, I burn 500 calories in 30 min at 78% of my lab tested HRmax.
    And the speed on the treadmill at that point in the data matches right up with the formula.
    Yes, you can easily burn 1000 calories per hr. Just because you haven't seen it, doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

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