I exercise and eat healthy - but get fatter

13»

Replies

  • ForecasterJason
    ForecasterJason Posts: 2,577 Member
    ana3067 wrote: »
    remnantkin wrote: »
    ana3067 wrote: »
    No, dear God no, do NOT peddle this kind of message to people. Like HELL I'm eating 1450 calories to lose weight when I only have ~15lbs to go. I didn't even eat that little when I was 188lbs! This is a TERRIBLE thing to recommend to people - it is going to work for very few people.

    You wouldn't have been eating that low at 188lbs because you should have been eating at most around 1880 calories (before exercise). It's a basic (rough) calorie deficit/sustain/growth calculation determined by your current bodyweight. The more you weigh, the more you can eat. If you're looking to drop from 10stone to 9 (145 to 130lbs) you can't be sitting around the house all day scoffing 2000 calories.

    Sorry, I should have clarified and I did read it a bit wrong (another user suggests 10x your GOAL weight for weight loss). But I didnt' even only eat 1880 when I was at my heaviest. I quickly bumped it up to 2000-2250 calories. Which still may have been lower than needed.

    If you want to lose weight, you need to figure out your energy expenditure. So no, if all I did was sit on my *kitten* all day I probably wouldn't lose that much eating 2000 calories (but I would still lose at my weight of 160lbs). But because I lift weights 4x a week for ~40 minutes or more and because I do ~1.5hrs of cardio a week, I CAN lose weight easily on 2000 calories. I actually had to increase it because I didn't feel great eating only 2000 calories. Whether you do TDEE (gross) or net calorie methods (MFP), it's about basing your intake on your energy needs, not on some generic calculation of your weight times some random number. So again, please do not tell people to use that type of calculation. You can most likely eat more than you are currently eating as well to lose weight.
    I agree that those type calculations often do not work for a lot of people. I'm not even that active but yet I'd lose weight at 14 calories per pound. I'm maintaining at 18 calories per pound of bodyweight as it is.
  • remnantkin
    remnantkin Posts: 6 Member
    edited January 2015
    ana3067 wrote: »
    Sorry, I should have clarified and I did read it a bit wrong (another user suggests 10x your GOAL weight for weight loss). But I didnt' even only eat 1880 when I was at my heaviest. I quickly bumped it up to 2000-2250 calories. Which still may have been lower than needed.

    If you want to lose weight, you need to figure out your energy expenditure. So no, if all I did was sit on my *kitten* all day I probably wouldn't lose that much eating 2000 calories (but I would still lose at my weight of 160lbs). But because I lift weights 4x a week for ~40 minutes or more and because I do ~1.5hrs of cardio a week, I CAN lose weight easily on 2000 calories. I actually had to increase it because I didn't feel great eating only 2000 calories. Whether you do TDEE (gross) or net calorie methods (MFP), it's about basing your intake on your energy needs, not on some generic calculation of your weight times some random number. So again, please do not tell people to use that type of calculation. You can most likely eat more than you are currently eating as well to lose weight.

    There's a bit in my post where i covered added calories limits through exercise and advised calculating energy expended at work through the use of a pedometer. I also mentioned that i could eat up to ~3000 calories a day and still lose weight, so i think we're on the same page but just disagreeing on the minimum calorie threshold.

    The 10/14/16 thing is just a rough guideline that gives you a straightforward calorie limit to aim for without overburdening and putting yourself off the whole weightloss thing by trying to work out complex calculations. From my experience, both personally and with other people trying to lose, anything seen as a "complexity" is a barrier to entry and just puts people off. So simplifying things gets them through that first door and into the habit of just watching what they eat.

    10x is like the lowest I'd consider ever going before you start to feel like *kitten*, but if you're still feeling like *kitten* at that after using macros to manage how you feel then you can adjust to eat more until you stop seeing weight drop week to week.

    edit: Like, there are a lot of people in my work drastically cutting calories relative to their bodyweight who think that 10x is too many calories and keep talking about how hard it all is despite me telling them they could eat more and still lose weight (without feeling crappy).
  • remnantkin
    remnantkin Posts: 6 Member
    edited January 2015
    HappyCampr1 wrote: »
    I was thinking the same thing as the other person who questioned this. I would lose weight at 2100 calories (155 lbs x 1.4 per your formula to maintain.) My MFP intake without exercise is 2430 to maintain and my TDEE falls around 2600. I'm 5'4" and 48 years old. General statements like that tend to make a lot of assumptions and aren't always helpful. Everyone is different.

    Not that I'm wanting to derail the thread any further, but i punched your stats into 3 different TDEE non MFP calculators and unless I've used them wrong, the only way I could get it up to 2600 is if I set it to extremely active.

    http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html
    http://iifym.com/tdee-calculator/
    http://thefastdiet.co.uk/how-many-calories-on-a-non-fast-day/

    Is there a reason why the MFP calculations would indicate higher numbers?

    edit: i should clarify, why does the MFP calculation show a higher number when 3 other different ones all show lower, but fairly consistant, numbers?
  • segacs
    segacs Posts: 4,599 Member
    remnantkin wrote: »
    Is there a reason why the MFP calculations would indicate higher numbers?

    Because calculators are only estimates, based on average people and imperfect formulae. They aren't going to apply exactly to everyone. It depends on body fat percentage, resting metabolism, and a whole host of other factors.

    The only true way to know your actual TDEE is to calculate it based on actual calories consumed and weight lost over a period of time. Any calculator is only ever going to give you a rough idea.
  • littleknownblogger
    littleknownblogger Posts: 67 Member
    Less rice; more healthy fat--cook with coconut oil, add some flax oil to your salad. It will induce faster satiety and deter gluconeogenesis. Also, try a few rounds of high-intensity exercise per week--some sprints, for example. Something you can do all-out for less than 30 seconds... But do several rounds.

Categories