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Can someone check my work please?

galea11984
galea11984 Posts: 3 Member
edited November 2024 in Health and Weight Loss
Hi All,
Would someone mind checking my working to see if my diet calculations are correct please?

Profile: Male, 17 stone, 6ft, Sedimentary Life style, exercise 3 times a week for 30mins.

Attempting to lose 2lbs a week.

Consume 1500 calories a day, 50% Protein, 30% Fat and 20% Carb.

Follow up questions:
  • If I exercise and burn 300cals, can I add this to my daily total (e.g. 1500 + 300 = 1800) and still maintain my goal?
  • If I am just looking to strip fat, should I concentrate more or cardio or weights?

Thanks to anyone who takes the time to ask my questions, this is for a good cause (my wedding in June!).

Thanks

Replies

  • srv524
    srv524 Posts: 1,363 Member
    1) You can (per MFP dairty guidelines) but I don't. I treat exercise calories as bonus calories. If I burn 500, I don't immediately add 500 calories to my daily intake. If I eat an extra 100-200 calories that day, I don't fret about it since I'm "in the bonus"

    2) Weights, weights and weights. Cardio will help burn calories but weights build lean muscle mass which in turn burns more SUSTAINED calories over a longer term. So you could either buy coffee every day for $2 or buy a coffee machine for $20. After awhile the coffee machines pays for itself and you just need to maintain it.
  • sullus
    sullus Posts: 2,839 Member
    edited January 2016
    The only problem I have with the numbers is adding all the exercise calories back into food. Assuming you're 30, the Scooby calculator puts your Sedentary TDEE at 2700 calories (or 112 Calories per hour)

    When you exercise for an hour and burn 300 calories, what you need to keep in mind is; that is your total burn for the hour. If you had stayed home and done nothing, you would have burned 112 calories anyway, so you really only burned 188 calories more than if you had done nothing. Add the 188, not the 300.

    But .. at 1500 calories, that's pretty aggressive, so eating 188 v.300 extra won't actually make that much of a difference. (1/5th lb per week difference)
  • galea11984
    galea11984 Posts: 3 Member
    srv524 wrote: »
    1) You can (per MFP dairty guidelines) but I don't. I treat exercise calories as bonus calories. If I burn 500, I don't immediately add 500 calories to my daily intake. If I eat an extra 100-200 calories that day, I don't fret about it since I'm "in the bonus"

    2) Weights, weights and weights. Cardio will help burn calories but weights build lean muscle mass which in turn burns more SUSTAINED calories over a longer term. So you could either buy coffee every day for $2 or buy a coffee machine for $20. After awhile the coffee machines pays for itself and you just need to maintain it.

    Thank you, that seems pretty sensible. :)

    Loving the coffee machine analogy.

    Weights it is!
  • srv524
    srv524 Posts: 1,363 Member
    You still want to do some cardio to stay lean and build overall cardiovascular health. But in terms of muscle mass and calories burned, weights is the way to go.
  • missblondi2u
    missblondi2u Posts: 851 Member
    I used the Scooby calculator (here http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ ) and with your stats I got a TDEE of just over 3000, which includes your 3 x week exercise. A 2 lb/week loss requires a roughly 1000 cal/day deficit. So according to this you could potentially eat as much as 2000 cal/day and still lose 2 lb/week. Note that if you use the TDEE method, you wouldn't log any calories for your exercise because they are already taken into account.

    However, if you use MFP as it is intended, you will get a lower base calorie number with extra calories added for exercise. Just put your numbers in and MFP will do the math for you. And yes, I would recommend eating your exercise calories back so that you maintain your 1000 cal/day deficit. Since you are aiming for such a high loss rate, I wouldn't recommend trying to increase that by not eating exercise calories back. The only caveat here is to watch out for overestimated burns from the MFP database or exercise machine readings. That is why some people only eat a portion of the given calories back.

    As for what kind of exercises to do, I think both are great. Cardio is good for burning calories (which means you can eat more food) and increasing endurance. Weights won't burn many calories (in fact many on here log it as 1 calorie burn), but they will help maintain your lean muscle as you lose weight. What another poster said about building muscle is true, but not really applicable to you since you can't really build muscle when eating at a deficit.
  • galea11984
    galea11984 Posts: 3 Member
    missblondi2u wrote: »
    I used the Scooby calculator (here http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ ) and with your stats I got a TDEE of just over 3000, which includes your 3 x week exercise. A 2 lb/week loss requires a roughly 1000 cal/day deficit. So according to this you could potentially eat as much as 2000 cal/day and still lose 2 lb/week. Note that if you use the TDEE method, you wouldn't log any calories for your exercise because they are already taken into account.

    However, if you use MFP as it is intended, you will get a lower base calorie number with extra calories added for exercise. Just put your numbers in and MFP will do the math for you. And yes, I would recommend eating your exercise calories back so that you maintain your 1000 cal/day deficit. Since you are aiming for such a high loss rate, I wouldn't recommend trying to increase that by not eating exercise calories back. The only caveat here is to watch out for overestimated burns from the MFP database or exercise machine readings. That is why some people only eat a portion of the given calories back.

    As for what kind of exercises to do, I think both are great. Cardio is good for burning calories (which means you can eat more food) and increasing endurance. Weights won't burn many calories (in fact many on here log it as 1 calorie burn), but they will help maintain your lean muscle as you lose weight. What another poster said about building muscle is true, but not really applicable to you since you can't really build muscle when eating at a deficit.

    Thank you for such a detailed response, it is a big help. :)

    I have noticed MFP has quite a generous estimate for cals burnt during exercise, I will definitely take that into account.

    I have been mainly doing cardio, but based upon the advice here I will change the mix to more of a focus on weights and cardio just for overall health.

    Thank you all for your responses. :)
  • sullus
    sullus Posts: 2,839 Member
    galea11984 wrote: »
    missblondi2u wrote: »
    I used the Scooby calculator (here http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/ ) and with your stats I got a TDEE of just over 3000, which includes your 3 x week exercise. A 2 lb/week loss requires a roughly 1000 cal/day deficit. So according to this you could potentially eat as much as 2000 cal/day and still lose 2 lb/week. Note that if you use the TDEE method, you wouldn't log any calories for your exercise because they are already taken into account.

    However, if you use MFP as it is intended, you will get a lower base calorie number with extra calories added for exercise. Just put your numbers in and MFP will do the math for you. And yes, I would recommend eating your exercise calories back so that you maintain your 1000 cal/day deficit. Since you are aiming for such a high loss rate, I wouldn't recommend trying to increase that by not eating exercise calories back. The only caveat here is to watch out for overestimated burns from the MFP database or exercise machine readings. That is why some people only eat a portion of the given calories back.

    As for what kind of exercises to do, I think both are great. Cardio is good for burning calories (which means you can eat more food) and increasing endurance. Weights won't burn many calories (in fact many on here log it as 1 calorie burn), but they will help maintain your lean muscle as you lose weight. What another poster said about building muscle is true, but not really applicable to you since you can't really build muscle when eating at a deficit.

    Thank you for such a detailed response, it is a big help. :)

    I have noticed MFP has quite a generous estimate for cals burnt during exercise, I will definitely take that into account.

    I have been mainly doing cardio, but based upon the advice here I will change the mix to more of a focus on weights and cardio just for overall health.

    Thank you all for your responses. :)

    It's not that the calories burnt estimate is generous or that machines overestimate .. Both are pretty accurate for total calories burend during the workout. Both numbers just fail to take into account how many calories you would have burned anyways if you were doing nothing. Those things show you TOTAL burn. They do not show you the delta between doing nothing and working out. You have to do that math yourself. This is one place where MFP is seriously misleading ..
  • _lyndseybrooke_
    _lyndseybrooke_ Posts: 2,561 Member
    Sedimentary? Like...rocks? I believe you mean sedentary.

    You're a big dude - please don't eat 1500 calories a day. More like 2000, both on workout days and rest days. Forget about estimating your calorie burns. Use the TDEE method and just focus on a weekly deficit rather than worrying about eating more or less based on your workout. There is no reason a grown man should eat 1500 calories a day unless he's 4ft tall and/or bedridden. For reference, I'm a 5'5" 125lb female and I eat 1850 calories/day to lose weight. I lift six days per week, but otherwise I'm sitting at a desk all day.

    Lift weights to minimize muscle loss. I prefer very little cardio, but if you like it, do it.
  • MireyGal76
    MireyGal76 Posts: 7,334 Member
    That 1500 seems crazy low for a 6'2", 238 pound male. What is your desired goal weight?

    I'm see that you want to lose the 2lb/week "maximum", but I want to suggest something craaaaaaaazy.

    Why not go for 1lb a week and focus more on strength training. The weights will help build strength and the slower loss may help preserve muscle mass.

    You could potentially lose the 2lb per week, but at the cost of more muscle than you want - leaving you skinnier, but still unhappy with the way you look.

    238 is not huge on a tall man... I really recommend losing slower.
  • MireyGal76
    MireyGal76 Posts: 7,334 Member
    FWIW... I'm a 6'1" female and am consuming 2200 cals at maintenance. 1500 would make me very VERY grumpy.

    Oh... and if you decide to stick with 1500... then PLEASE eat back your exercise cals. On that big of a deficit... I'd eat them all back, even if they're inflated.

    The reason why... because you want to look long term at developing sustainable habits... and 1500 cals/day is not sustainable. It only sets you up for sickness and yoyo diets.
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