Are net calories important?

FairyDandy · July 2015

I'm 30yo, 5'8 and 245lb (17st7).

I average about 12K steps a day and wear a FitBit Charge HR constantly. My only exercise is walking with weights once a week (which I don't wear the Charge for as I hear it inflates calories for that kind of activity). For the activity I do the Charge HR gives me ~900 calories extra.

I've been put on 1370 a day for a 2lb loss but if I eat just to 1370 then I get a tiny net calorie amount of around 500. As I have been given so many calories I have been eating some of them back and totaling 1600-1800 a day. But that still leaves me with a net calorie amount under 1000.

I have only been doing this 5 weeks and after an initial 7lb loss the first week I am settling into 1-2lb a week so the loss does not seem too high. I weigh my food with a scale for breakfast and dinners but weekday lunches for now I still go out and buy. I'm not yet worrying about macros, just trying to sort calories out first.

Should I be concerned that my net calories are under 1000? Or is it more important that my consumed calories are high enough?

labohn91 · July 2015

1-2 pounds a week is fine, walking is great. If you are losing on more calories why would you want to cut your calories down, it won't be as substitutable.

Billy213 · July 2015

I find that anything that measures exercise inflates the calories burned in general so I never bother worrying about them and just use it for fitness as opposed to burning calories as the goal.

I lost 11lb in my first week and then settled down to 2lb eating my daily goal with a 2lb deficit after a couple more weeks.

AngelaAlario · July 2015

As long as your consumed calories are well above 1200 your calories burned should not be an issue. Your rate of loss is perfectly reasonable. If you were say, losing 4-5 pounds per week I'd be concerned. Keep it up and let yourself eat back some of those calories on occasion ;-)

longtimeterp · July 2015

FairyDandy wrote: »

I'm 30yo, 5'8 and 245lb (17st7).

I average about 12K steps a day and wear a FitBit Charge HR constantly. My only exercise is walking with weights once a week (which I don't wear the Charge for as I hear it inflates calories for that kind of activity). For the activity I do the Charge HR gives me ~900 calories extra.

I've been put on 1370 a day for a 2lb loss but if I eat just to 1370 then I get a tiny net calorie amount of around 500. As I have been given so many calories I have been eating some of them back and totaling 1600-1800 a day. But that still leaves me with a net calorie amount under 1000.

I have only been doing this 5 weeks and after an initial 7lb loss the first week I am settling into 1-2lb a week so the loss does not seem too high. I weigh my food with a scale for breakfast and dinners but weekday lunches for now I still go out and buy. I'm not yet worrying about macros, just trying to sort calories out first.

Should I be concerned that my net calories are under 1000? Or is it more important that my consumed calories are high enough?

If you are not using the Charge HR for activities, what was the point of it. Keep it on all day, fitbits are VERY accurate. The charge HR is even more accurate, as it factors HR into calorie burn.

Without knowing your current stats, assuming you have the activity level on MFP set to properly coincide with the fitbit, you will be fine eating 1600-1800 cals a day if you have 80+ lbs to lose. The discrepency could be because you have the activity level on MFP too low however. Best thing to do is see what the fitbit says your weekly avg cals burned are, and set the MFP activity level that most corresponds to that daily number. ANd ensure you have negative adjustments enabled.

And as for walking with weights, i hope you are not using ankle weights, as those place terrible stress on joints.

Escloflowne · July 2015

You want your NET calories to be around 1370, that is a 1000 calorie a day deficit. It's all estimates but you should lose 1-2 lbs per week on that, it's not a guaranteed weight loss. Some weeks you wont lose anything and then other weeks you will lose 3-4.

Most important thing is that your calorie counting is accurate, I'm a firm believer that you NEED a kitchen scale for that but some people think that is too anal....

ncfitbit · July 2015

longtimeterp wrote: »

FairyDandy wrote: »

I'm 30yo, 5'8 and 245lb (17st7).

I average about 12K steps a day and wear a FitBit Charge HR constantly. My only exercise is walking with weights once a week (which I don't wear the Charge for as I hear it inflates calories for that kind of activity). For the activity I do the Charge HR gives me ~900 calories extra.

I've been put on 1370 a day for a 2lb loss but if I eat just to 1370 then I get a tiny net calorie amount of around 500. As I have been given so many calories I have been eating some of them back and totaling 1600-1800 a day. But that still leaves me with a net calorie amount under 1000.

I have only been doing this 5 weeks and after an initial 7lb loss the first week I am settling into 1-2lb a week so the loss does not seem too high. I weigh my food with a scale for breakfast and dinners but weekday lunches for now I still go out and buy. I'm not yet worrying about macros, just trying to sort calories out first.

Should I be concerned that my net calories are under 1000? Or is it more important that my consumed calories are high enough?

If you are not using the Charge HR for activities, what was the point of it. Keep it on all day, fitbits are VERY accurate. The charge HR is even more accurate, as it factors HR into calorie burn.

Without knowing your current stats, assuming you have the activity level on MFP set to properly coincide with the fitbit, you will be fine eating 1600-1800 cals a day if you have 80+ lbs to lose. The discrepency could be because you have the activity level on MFP too low however. Best thing to do is see what the fitbit says your weekly avg cals burned are, and set the MFP activity level that most corresponds to that daily number. ANd ensure you have negative adjustments enabled.

And as for walking with weights, i hope you are not using ankle weights, as those place terrible stress on joints.

I agree with this. My fitbit is very accurate and helps keep me honest, especially on those days when I exercise hard, but then move a little less the rest of the day or start the day off a little lazily. That's when negative adjustments is great. More than any little lights or beeps, taking away some of my calories is super motivating!

cwolfman13 · July 2015

it is important, but you have to also remember that there are inherent estimation errors in both logging intake and estimating calorie burns from exercise.

Protranser · July 2015

ncfitbit wrote: »

longtimeterp wrote: »

FairyDandy wrote: »

I'm 30yo, 5'8 and 245lb (17st7).

I average about 12K steps a day and wear a FitBit Charge HR constantly. My only exercise is walking with weights once a week (which I don't wear the Charge for as I hear it inflates calories for that kind of activity). For the activity I do the Charge HR gives me ~900 calories extra.

I've been put on 1370 a day for a 2lb loss but if I eat just to 1370 then I get a tiny net calorie amount of around 500. As I have been given so many calories I have been eating some of them back and totaling 1600-1800 a day. But that still leaves me with a net calorie amount under 1000.

I have only been doing this 5 weeks and after an initial 7lb loss the first week I am settling into 1-2lb a week so the loss does not seem too high. I weigh my food with a scale for breakfast and dinners but weekday lunches for now I still go out and buy. I'm not yet worrying about macros, just trying to sort calories out first.

Should I be concerned that my net calories are under 1000? Or is it more important that my consumed calories are high enough?

If you are not using the Charge HR for activities, what was the point of it. Keep it on all day, fitbits are VERY accurate. The charge HR is even more accurate, as it factors HR into calorie burn.

Without knowing your current stats, assuming you have the activity level on MFP set to properly coincide with the fitbit, you will be fine eating 1600-1800 cals a day if you have 80+ lbs to lose. The discrepency could be because you have the activity level on MFP too low however. Best thing to do is see what the fitbit says your weekly avg cals burned are, and set the MFP activity level that most corresponds to that daily number. ANd ensure you have negative adjustments enabled.

And as for walking with weights, i hope you are not using ankle weights, as those place terrible stress on joints.

I agree with this. My fitbit is very accurate and helps keep me honest, especially on those days when I exercise hard, but then move a little less the rest of the day or start the day off a little lazily. That's when negative adjustments is great. More than any little lights or beeps, taking away some of my calories is super motivating!

I'm also part of the fitbit fanbase. I love mine, and I eat back all my calories from exercise. I have been steadily losing while eating all of my exercise calories back. It may not be 1 lb every week consistently, but over x amount of weeks, the math works out to y amt of lbs per week. They even send you an email every week which summarizes all your activity, calories eaten, calories burned, floors climbed, distance traveled, etc. I only do step based cardio activity atm though. I think people who swim or bike as their primary cardio may not have as much faith in their fitbit calorie estimations.

ncfitbit · July 2015

Oh, I meant to also say that it's also possible your net calories are a little bit higher than you think. You're doing great if you're weighing at breakfast and dinner, but I know from my own experience eating out tends to go along with higher calorie counts no matter how "healthy" the meal seems.

IMO when you first start there seems to be a lot more wiggle room, but as you get closer and closer to your goal it's super important to make sure you aren't taking in hundreds of calories more than you think. It will save you a lot of frustration if you really know what you are taking in.

You're creating a big enough deficit that you're losing weight at a great rate, but I would take a closer look the calorie accuracy of your lunches right now so that you can be sure you don't hit a stall at some point and wonder where you might be off by a little. I saw someone recently suggest taking half of their take out meal home and weighing the components to improve accuracy. I think this is a great idea, especially for meals you tend to eat often.

But bottom line is you're great so keep up the great work and congrats on your success so far!

FairyDandy · July 2015

Thanks so much for the replies!

To be clear (as I did not phrase it well) I wear my FitBit constantly and average 12K steps a day. But I do take it off only when I do my weight session in the gym once a week as I heard that for weight type exercises it iver inflates numbers. If this is incorrect let me know! I do love my FitBit but if I eat back all the exercise calories that is around 2300-2400 a day which seems huge to me. I have negative calories enabled and tend to wake up with about -130 calories and then end the day on about +900.

However, it's good to know people are having success with eating all calories with a FitBit, that may come in handy down the line.

With lunches, I stick to ones that have the calorie count included such as Itsu, M&S, Subway but I'm aware they are not always going to be 100% (Itsu even say that on their website). However, i am using the "beginners wiggle room" for now as I know that in a few weeks time I will have to start getting back into a routine of making my own lunches. Luckily my office already has a food scale in the kitchen so I don't even have to take one with me and can weigh out the occasional treat that gets brought around the office (yes, I am THAT cool).

The lunches probably count for me losing 1-2lb a week when my weekly net calories suggest I should be losing 3lb

.

Again, thanks all. Really useful stuff!

editorgrrl · July 2015

FairyDandy wrote: »

I wear my FitBit constantly and average 12K steps a day. But I do take it off only when I do my weight session in the gym once a week as I heard that for weight type exercises it overinflates numbers.

I do love my FitBit but if I eat back all the exercise calories that is around 2300-2400 a day which seems huge to me. I have negative calories enabled and tend to wake up with about -130 calories and then end the day on about +900.

Leave your Fitbit on. Exercise logged in MFP overwrites your Fitbit burn during that time, and taking it off increases the risk of losing it, or forgetting to put it back on.

Your Fitbit burn is TDEE (total daily energy expenditure), the calories necessary to maintain your current weight. Your default calorie goal already has your deficit built in. With negative calorie adjustments enabled, eating back your adjustments means you're eating TDEE minus deficit.

The only reason not to eat back 100% of your adjustments is to compensate for not logging everything you eat & drink accurately & honestly. Chronic undereating will not get you to your goal any quicker.

Trust your Fitbit for several weeks, reevaluate your progress, and adjust accordingly.

You can learn more in the Fitbit group: http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/1290-fitbit-users

Are net calories important?

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