Lurking... Now I have a question

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KSnow78
KSnow78 Posts: 37 Member
in Getting Started
Ive been lurking all weekend and today I signed up for MFP. 38 years old. Awaiting our call for IVF and need to lose weight before then to increase our fertility chances. Im currently 215lbs and 5'1 feet tall. Apple Shaped. I would love to lose 40 lbs by November and eventually be down 70 lbs overall.

I entered my stats into MFP - I requested to start losing 2 lbs per week.

It is allowing me 1240 calories per day. That is with a 1000 calorie deficit.

1) I have a fitbit, when I sync will it count my calories burned in MFP from my steps ? I dont want to eat those.. that is everyday walking.... what do i do if i walk on the treadmill ? Will it double count ?

2) If I exercise and enter the burned calories into MFP, Do i have to eat them ? When do I know if I should eat them or not ?

3) There was an area in the settings about check boxing enabling negative something... What is this and should I check it off ?


Thank you so much...

Kimberley

Replies

  • janejellyroll
    janejellyroll Posts: 25,763 Member
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    If you sync your Fitbit, you will get calories recorded for your total activity -- there is no option just to sync exercise. If you want to have just exercise -- not the calories you burn from every day life -- counted, it would probably be better to log your exercise and not worry about the syncing.

    You don't *have* to eat the calories you burn through exercise, but MFP gives you a calorie goal based on the assumption that you will. If you don't eat back and you exercise a lot or have an aggressive goal (which you do), you may not eat enough to ensure your health and energy.

    Negative adjustments are a way to ensure that you don't eat too much if your actual activity level is lower, on a specific day, than the activity level you chose in MFP. If you choose "lightly active," you get a certain number of calories. But if on a specific day you move less than the "lightly active" category would suggest, it subtracts calories from your daily goal so you don't eat too much. If you are syncing and using that information for your calorie goal, you should probably check it.
  • Kanyon17
    Kanyon17 Posts: 156 Member
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    Hi!
    I can only help you with your #2: you MUST eat back the calories burnt or else you'll not have enough calories for your day. Not eating enough might show fast result at first but on the long term, when you,ll try to get back to a more 'normal' diet your body might react by stocking everything it can because of the starvation you've been putting it trough. Key word is slow and steady for permanent results!
  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited February 2016
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    1) Yes. And you should eat at least 50% back. Otherwise you'll be netting less than 1200 which is unhealthy and dangerous.

    2) If you sync your fitbit, which is the preferable choice for most, you would not log any exercise in MFP that fitbit can measure. So basically the only things you would log manually in MFP are swimming (fitbit isn't waterproof) and anythig you do while you're not wearing it.

    3)Enabling negative Adjustments is a helpful and beneficial tool that I do recommend, and most fitbit users enable them. What it does is allows fitbit to tell MFP "Hey Teamsnow has been super sedentary today, you may want to lower her caloric intake to maintain her deficit", then MFP does that. It's an easy and effortless (on your end) way to make sure that even on a day when you sit around for a M*A*S*H Marathon and do nothing, your deficit remains the same. Note that MFP will never allow this to take you below 1200, as previously stated, it's not safe.
  • Yi5hedr3
    Yi5hedr3 Posts: 2,696 Member
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    Only eat back half. Remember those "Burned calories" will be severely overestimated. :)
  • CoffeeNCardio
    CoffeeNCardio Posts: 1,847 Member
    edited February 2016
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    Kanyon17 wrote: »
    Hi!
    I can only help you with your #2: you MUST eat back the calories burnt or else you'll not have enough calories for your day. Not eating enough might show fast result at first but on the long term, when you,ll try to get back to a more 'normal' diet your body might react by stocking everything it can because of the starvation you've been putting it trough. Key word is slow and steady for permanent results!

    No. Starvation mode as it is commonly understood is a myth. Eating at a VERY high deficit for a prolonged period of time (a true starvation diet) will result in "Adaptive Thermogenesis" which is a lowering of your metabolism, however, this only happens with dangerously low caloric intake and when the person begins to eat at a normal caloric intake again, the effect goes away and your metabolic rate goes back to normal.

    The commonly accepted rule for exercise calories is to eat 50% back for a month or two, evaluate your weight loss to make sure that is working, and then adjust if necessary. This number 50% is because most caloric burn measures, like machine AND fitbit even, tend to overestimate calorie burn. So it makes for a good general starting point.
  • KSnow78
    KSnow78 Posts: 37 Member
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    Thank you so much. Ive enabled negative adjustments. This is going to be a great journey. One last question.....

    My fitbit has now synced 84 calories.. im assuming from my everyday office job walking... so it has now told me that i have an extra 84 calories to eat (increasing total calories and increasing the macro nutrients a bit as well) ... How do you all keep track of the original macro nutrients when it keeps adding to them as you exercise... I only want to eat half.... Not all of them. Its almost like i have to start the day with a clean slate, screen shot the numbers so i remember what they are... before the exercise starts being added....

    What do you do ?
  • CyberTone
    CyberTone Posts: 7,337 Member
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    TeamSnow0920 wrote: »
    Thank you so much. Ive enabled negative adjustments. This is going to be a great journey. One last question.....

    My fitbit has now synced 84 calories.. im assuming from my everyday office job walking... so it has now told me that i have an extra 84 calories to eat (increasing total calories and increasing the macro nutrients a bit as well) ... How do you all keep track of the original macro nutrients when it keeps adding to them as you exercise... I only want to eat half.... Not all of them. Its almost like i have to start the day with a clean slate, screen shot the numbers so i remember what they are... before the exercise starts being added....

    What do you do ?

    Scroll to tomorrow's goal numbers, they don't include Calories gained from exercise yet.
  • WendyLaubach
    WendyLaubach Posts: 518 Member
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    I never eat back my calories, but then my activity level doesn't vary dramatically from one day to the next. You can experiment and see how you feel. If I felt sluggish and cold for days on end, I'd suspect I was trying to be too active on too few calories. As it is, I found that my stomach shrank up, I stopped being troubled by hunger, and the calorie level I've adopted for the last few months (1400) is fine to get me through either a lazy day, or a day of 45 minutes or so on the treadmill at an unheroic pace befitting my age and weight (59, 208).

    If you do eat back your calories, keep close track for a while and see if you like the results. Bear in mind that you probably can get reasonably accurate in your eaten calories if you measure and weigh your food, but you'll get all kinds of crazy input about your exercise calories. The books I've been reading suggest that no one but an elite athlete is likely to be burning as much as 7 calories a minute, no matter what the machines or devices are telling you. If you're plodding along like a regular person, you'll be safer logging something like 4 calories a minute and letting that number guide you in choosing whether to increase your food intake for the day. If you don't feel like you're running on empty (not just "I could eat" but "I can't go on like this"), and you're not losing crazy amounts per week, you're probably fine.

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