Weight loss in conjunction with training can be a tricky thing. I have found that I do much better with a TDEE approach because it gives me a more consistent supply of fuel throughout the week and I tend to eat healthier because I am not filling up on junk food if I have a huge calorie surplus. But that 's just personal preference.

Even if you are eating back most of your calories, dropping a pound per week may just be too ambitious. If you haven't already done so, I would suggest checking out Matt Fitzgerald's "Racing Weight". It specifically focuses on weight loss for maximum performance.

KathleenKP wrote: »

MFP is probably VERY overcalculating your calorie burn, which is why you are losing slower than they suggest you should. Garmin does it, too. TDEE doesn't work for me. (It overestimates.) For me, I simply don't burn what those calculators think I should. Which makes sense - how can my body use 600-800 calories in an hour of movement, but only need 1200 calories for the other 23 hours of a day?

I agree that practically all calorie burn estimates are high; that is the financial incentive the people who design the estimates have. But the more important concept is, they're *estimates*. And your base metabolism rate calories burn number is an estimate, too. Even the best estimates will be based on broad averages, and you may not be close to the average.

That's fine for weight loss, if you're close enough to the estimate. If you're targeting a 500 calorie deficit per day, and the figures are off by 250 calories, your planned loss of 1 lb. per week becomes 0.5 or 1.5 lbs. in practice. No big deal, you get there. Then you go into maintenance, and the game changes. Being persistently off by 250 calories per day when you're targeting a net zero means you're trending up or down by a half pound per week. That's a 26 lb. per year change, which doesn't look like maintenance.

As it turns out, I burn more calories than the canned estimates. When I eat the calories I know I need to eat to maintain, MFP tells me I'm going to gain weight in 5 weeks. If I eat what MFP says I need to eat to maintain, I will lose weight. So, what to do? I ignore what MFP says, weigh myself daily, and watch the trend. If my weight starts trending down, I adjust my calories up and vice versa.

I don't directly eat the calories back. I would never be comfortable eating an extra 1200 calories on a long run day. But I do need to eat more when I run distances. I settled, for now, on eating an extra 100 calories per 5 miles I run. That essentially lets me take a gel every 5 miles and still eat as much real food as I would on a day off running, plus a kicker if I don't use that many gels. I still periodically need to adjust my base calories up or down. Sometimes I can see a reason, like when a stress fracture moved me from running 30 miles a week to not running at all between one day and the next. Other times, I see a need to adjust but can't identify anything about what I'm doing that caused that need to adjust. I deal with it.

I know I'm eating more on rest days than those particular days burn, and less on long run days than those days burn. I don't know precisely how much more or less, and I'm okay with that as long as I can keep the weight trending sideways.

I'm pretty sure I could use the same methods to make my weight trend down slowly, but I don't really want to weigh a whole lot less than I do right now.

yoplait311 wrote: »

I use a Garmin HRM to calculate calorie burn and it seems accurate to me. For example, an easy 5 mile run will burn around 450 calories. A hard 5 mile run, with tempo or speed work, will burn 550. I'm not sure that I should be eating less than 1400 calories a day while running 50 miles a week.

Any HRM, even a higher quality one where you can customize you VO2MAX and resting and max HR, is basing it's calorie burns off of an algorithm that correlates calories burned to HR. Your HR can be affected by other reasons not accounted for by the HRM, such as weather, recovery, etc., that will thrown that correlation off. I've had calorie burns be 40% high when running in high temperatures in sun versus the same exact run in cool temperatures in the evening. Regardless of speed, calories burned/distance is pretty constant during a run. The formula: Net Calories Burned = (weight in lbs) x (distance in miles) x 0.63 should be pretty close.

I also noticed you have a Garmin Connect calories adjustment, so I'm guessing your Garmin has an activity tracker built into it and gives you daily adjustments based on that. I've seen those be problematic as well.

yoplait311 wrote: »

Also, my last BodPod test analyzed my BMR at 1850.

From the reply's so far, it seems as thought dropping weight while training is highly individual.

The BodPod does not measure your BMR. It estimates your BF% and then estimates your BMR based on your weight and BF%. It's a better estimate than the one MFP uses that is based off of just your weight/sex/age, but it is an estimate based off of population averages as well. Only a direct measure of your BMR using a mask/hood will get you your actual BMR. And even with this, you still are estimating your activity level to get your daily calorie needs.

If you have been accurate and consistent in your food and exercise logging, and track your weight over time, you have the data you need to figure out your ACTUAL calorie needs. Over the long term, the 1 lb/week of weight loss for every 500 calories/day below you calorie needs pretty much holds.

This tool is pretty awesome for doing the data import from MFP and calculations for you: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/blog/EvgeniZyntx/view/mfp-data-export-tool-the-overview-659927

What has been your actual long term weight loss with the approach you are currently taking? I did a slow 1/2 lb/week weight loss to get down to my racing weight while I was in the 25 MPW range BEFORE I started moving my mileage up for a marathon training cycle. Training definitely felt easier when I upped my calories back to maintenance. If you are losing weight slowly, I would say you are on the right track in terms of fueling. Fueling any more will just stall your weight loss. I did find eating more the day before/earlier in the day to fuel for a run worked better for me, so I would be "over" calories one day, but "under" calories on a big run day. It all evened out over the week.

I'm a bigger fan of watching calories/macros/micros using a food diary than the Racing Weight DQS approach, personally.

Can't you just follow your performance, and trust that? I know you want to lose weight, which makes things a bit complicated, but it seems to me that I am pretty good at knowing when I am hungry and not over-eating, and I know when my performance suffers because I am not eating enough.
I'd trust my body and my instincts more than a watch or a website!

Robbnva wrote: »

So I'm struggling with this also. I've got about 15-20 lbs to lose so I can fit into my summer clothes but I need to eat enough to be fueled for my upcoming races. I kee trying to look at diaries of other runners on here but everyone has theirs closed. I've just set my goal to 1/2 lb per week but not sure how that will work.

Well, mine is open if you wish to take a look. I have been weighing myself daily, same time, same general conditions every day since the beginning of the year. I started at 180.4 pounds. Today I am at 172.2 pounds. Yes, there can be a lot of daily variation (yesterday my weight was 171.6 pounds) , but the general trend is reducing weight. I could go back to once per week weight values, but I'm looking a less granular set of data. Although I did a better job with the macros earlier on when I first signed up for MFP and worked on getting down into the 175 pound range (my macros are set to 60, 20, 20), I am still producing the weight loss results as I shoot for a racing weight of 165.

I use the Weight Loss Calculator that Heybales maintains to give general settings and my current settings are based upon that spreadsheet. He also has a number of tools if you go to his profile page. I am working on a calorie deficit even though my profile says "very active" and "maintaining weight." So far, by reviewing the numbers each month, the calculations seem to be spot on. My current weight loss trend since January 1 is -0.1495 pounds per day (or about 1 pound per week) which is just about the right amount for me. There are some days when I am quite hungry but very few where I few like I'm really energy deprived.

I've linked to that spreadsheet. It takes time to fill out but it can give a quick group of settings to start. I've added a couple of tabs to his spreadsheet to do a longer term analysis of the trend.


https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Amt7QBR9-c6MdGVTbGswLUUzUHNVVUlNSW9wZWloeUE

I'm reasonably accurate on my food intake (i.e., I weigh most of my food or follow a standard formula for things I eat routinely, like my morning fruit smoothie). If I need to adjust an individual item or add something (e.g., the other morning I mixed my smoothie with uncooked oatmeal), I will add it. If I eat it, I log it (because my body sure will). No sense in not putting it down. If I'm off by a consistent amount, it will eventually be reflected in the data. My wife says I'm running a science experiment with my body and my running.

I use a Fitbit for step counts and it is reasonably accurate on steps and distance. It will also attempt a guess at running energy expenditure, but I use a heart rate monitor for that. I don't use the MFP default values.

When I run, I usually am tracking with two programs. One is Digifit by iCardio. The other is MapMyFitness. Both will read off my Bluetooth Low Energy heart rate monitor at the same time (different channels). They give comparable calorie expenditure (usually within 10-15%). I know the formula and the source of the formula for the Digifit program. I'm not sure about the MapMyFitness (also MapMyRun) calorie calculation. I do allow them to add back to the MFP calculation along with the Fitbit adjustment. However, at the end of a month, I have enough data from the daily calorie consumption and whatever the 4 week weight change value is to have a good handle on my contemporaneous TDEE.

One other thing. I limit my high intensity workouts to no more than two per week (usually only one, but in the current marathon training sequence, two per week is more common). The other times, I am running extremely easily (guided by my heart rate monitor), working to build endurance, burn more fat and less carbs/sugar.

Thanks Strooper but it says your diary is private. I'll read your whole post when I get home.

Seems to be an app issue. The link worked. Thanks