Should I really be eating this many calories!?

jenniator wrote: »

I put myself as Moderately active, but I might need to change it to lightly active if I'm only burning 312 calories a day.

I think moderately active is fine given all the walking you've described. Are you referring to MFP? (I didn't actually realize it had a moderately active option, but thought it went from lightly active to active, which I've always thought was weird.) I'd say do that and then don't worry about also eating back walking calories.

Here's my suggestion.

You are still obese. As you have 70+ you need to lose you should be able to lose 1% body weight per week safely. This would be 2.1 pounds per week.

Obviously as you get closer to your goal (and into the overweight/average weight range) you should drop it down to 1 pound per week to .5 pounds, etc. As you prepare for maintenance.

Here are your numbers. To maintain your current weight you would need roughly 2,400 calories per day. (Assuming you are sedentary)
To lose 2 pounds per week you would need 1,400 calories per day.

As far as walking is concerned the calories burned are significantly less than you are thinking. Generally walking burns a little over what you would burn laying around doing nothing, especially if it's low intensity. A heart rate monitor IS accurate for steady-state cardiovascular activity, however, walking may not raise your heart rate enough to accurately calculate calories burned.

My advice at this point would be to eat 1,400 calories and NOT log your walking as exercise. It's not burning as much as you think, AND myfitnesspal already assumes you're walking as part of your daily activity. I.e. Getting ready, going to work, grocery shopping, etc. MFP calculates your calories based on your TDEE.

TDEE (total daily energy expenditure) means the calories you burn on a regular day doing normal activity. When you set up MFP you selected "sedentary" "lightly active" "active", etc. So MFP took your BMR (calories you'd burn doing NOTHING aka breathing, pumping blood, etc.) and said "okay, she burns this much doing NOTHING and according to her she's active, so that means she burns x amount during the day with her walking, working, etc. Let's do her deficit off of that."

Does that make sense?

Anyway, unless you're running and really really pushing it above what you'd normally do in a day I wouldn't log it as exercise. It's very easy to overestimate how much you're actually burning, and MFP gives you the calories back to eat because it keeps your deficit the same...

Example: you maintain on 2,400 calories on an average day.
You want to lose 2 pounds per week so you'd eat 1,400 calories.
But wait today you burned your normal 2400 PLUS a really hard workout of 500 calories. You are now taking 2,900 calories to maintain your weight, so you'd need to eat 1,900 calories to maintain the "2 pounds per week" calorie goal.

Get it?

I hope this helps. You still got a ways to go, so keep at it!

You will never get an 100% accurate estimate of your calories - I really think you're overthinking it. I do "different" activities - aka circuit training - and could never accurately estimate it, so I moved to the TDEE -20% method and have been MUCH happier. And I'm around the same size as you. If I didn't eat back any of my calories (I have a desk job so was in as sedentary, but hit the gym/barn daily), I would be starving. Not literally... but super super hungry...

The purpose of having extra calories from working out is to fuel said workouts. You earned that extra workout food!

Congratulations on your loss so far... but it's not a race. It doesn't matter how people say things. Own your weight loss and own how much more you have to lose. Good luck!

jenniator wrote: »

Yeah calories are such a pain, especially when estimating how much you are losing. I know I am probably over thinking it and I haven't in the past, but it's driving me absolutely crazy to not lose anything in so long. I don't understand TDEE at all. It says my current TDEE is 2,379 calories. So I'm suppose to take 20% of that and that's suppose to be my daily calorie intake? If that's true, then me daily calorie intake should be 1,903? That would seem extremely high amount of calories for someone that is only lightly active and trying to lose weight, at least I think so. I was super hungry on my previous diet, but I bumped my calories up to 1,500ish and it has helped a lot.

It still is strange to me to eat back the calories you burned, but I understand your body needs fuel to keep going.

Thank you so much! I know it's not a race, but it doesn't mean I don't like setting goals for myself and at least lose 1 pound a week. I would love to lose 2 pounds a week for a while and hopefully get down to 185 so I won't be considered obese anymore. It's just nice to get as much weight off as you can, you also feel a lot better about yourself.

It's hard not to overthink it, I certainly do sometimes, but it sounds like you are doing what makes sense. Eating more because those low calories were getting hard to sustain and picking a reasonable number--1500-- and just trying it for a while. I also think 1500 and not worrying about exercise calories makes sense. This is not because your exercise isn't valuable, but trying to mess with calculating them is probably unnecessary, since you are consistent every week so they are part of your normal routine.

Congrats on getting back to 200 and good luck!

jenniator wrote: »

It still is strange to me to eat back the calories you burned, but I understand your body needs fuel to keep going./quote]

Well, you don't HAVE TO eat back your walking burn. Given the difficulties in estimating what you do burn on walks, it's probably better if you don't, assuming you're not losing more than 1% of your body weight per week regularly.

The fuel your body uses to fund the deficit is your body fat. That fuels your walk as well as today's meals do. Eating a minimum amount today isn't so much a fueling issue as a nutrition one. Walking doesn't negate nutrition.

Good luck!

I can't afford a HRM at the moment so ive been using this website.
http://www.shapesense.com/fitness-exercise/calculators/walking-calorie-burn-calculator.aspx
Takes in account your weight, distance and time. I like having something that dosn't use an average weight and speed to calculate. When i started I was at 4' 11" and 225 lbs none of the machines that take "averages" were anywhere near correct for me.