Help needed from all you veterans. To say I'm getting frustrated is an understatement! Pleeaassee

I'm going to offer a different possibility--that any weight loss you may have accomplished may be hidden by water retention from increased exercise. I know this happens to me whenever I really step it up, and it can linger for a couple of weeks before I get a "whoosh" of weight loss all of a sudden. Here is an article that made a lot of sense to me: http://www.leangains.com/2010/01/how-to-deal-with-water-retention-part.html

As for your Fitbit, I have a flex, and its calorie estimate is pretty spot on for me. I get fairly large adjustments (like 300-500 calories) from just hitting or exceeding my step count without doing any purposeful exercise (for comparison, I'm only 5'2" and weight about 155 lbs). On days I really exercise hard, I can get up to an 800 calorie or so adjustment. The reason for the large adjustment is because I have MFP set to sedentary. If I had it set to active, my adjustment would be smaller, but I would get more calories up front. I prefer to start with the lower calorie goal and "earn as I go."

Anyway, I hope you see a loss soon. Best of luck!

I use a Fitbit (the most basic model, the Zip) and find it is really accurate. But I am making a skeptical McKayla Maroney face about a 3000-3200 burn.

minamina27 wrote: »

This is my 3rd week on stronglifts so I only do around 25 minutes of cardio now on my lifting days, 2 gym days just cardio plus a 4 mile run on a Saturday morning and walking most days and Zumba classes.

And here is a totally opposite vote about your Fitbit being inaccurate given the substantial amount of exercise you are doing.

You just started Stronglifts. The possibility of water retention is extremely high.

Your weight changes? Are you using scale or a trending weight apps such as trendweight and weightgrapher?

If you are not using a trending weight app, please connect your fitbit account to them so that you can automatically transfer weight information over and can look at your trending weight changes as opposed to your scale weight changes to try and control a bit for water weight variations.

You also said that your body composition changed and that your clothes fit better. Did that happen magically?

Attached is a DXA scan of a female in her 40s who over a period of 3.3. months, BY EVIDENCE of her scan results, generated a daily deficit in the 1000 Cal range.

I bet you she was going WTF?!, just like you are, when her scale was showing "just" 12.1lbs of weight loss in spite of the deficit she thought she had.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5ivy2PKgcqcUFRJbHJ6UWZKXzZJelVMYkpPcUc4a0RFalQ4/view?usp=sharing

I am not saying that her result is typical. But it is obviously not impossible if you take an untrained individual who has sufficient fat available and train them.

If you want to test whether this is related to your exercise and just want to see a big weight drop, just stop exercising for a week and eat at (your much reduced because of lack of exercise) maintenance calories for that week, and see what happens with your weight.

blues4miles wrote: »

Another to say your Fitbit might be overestimating.

I use an UP3 and it gives me an INSANE amount of calories for walking and running. I have a theory the closer you are to a healthy weight the more accurate it is, but I think for us obese gals it does some multiplication that makes it incorrect.

Yesterday, for instance, it gave me 1,744 calories for my active burn (and 1,437 for resting). It thinks I went 7.85 miles. I walked for 3.25 miles at lunch, take a 1 mile round trip in and out of work every day, walked another 1 mile after work, and ran for 1.5 miles after work. So that's 6.75 in addition to any small amount of steps I might have taken going here or there, so it is already overestimating on distance. But even if we pretend I walked all of that, 1.5 miles ran and 6.35 miles walked... the standard calculation is .63 x (weight in lbs) x miles for calories burned running and .33 x (weight in lbs) x miles for calories burned walking. So that should be no more than 571 extra calories. And yet it gave me more than 3x that! Or even if you assume 100-120 cals per mile, that is still 800 more than the high end of that calculation.

I also think MFP's standard calories for walking/running overestimate. This has been my personal experience, I use a spreadsheet to average all my food eaten and exercise calories burned and estimate my weight loss and compare that to my actual weight loss. It has started to get a lot more accurate once I started using the above calculation instead of MFP numbers or even my HRM numbers.

For every anecdotal evidence leaning one way, there is another leaning the opposite way.

According to MFP and Google Fit, for the three weeks ending March 12, I should have gained 3.5lbs. This is based on Google's GPS/wifi distance logging and my phone's step calculations. I judge my phone's calculations to be fairly accurate. On some few occasions I have the phone on a charger as opposed to on me. Usually i am in the house when that happens and working on my workstation.

According to MFP and Fitbit, for the three weeks ending March 12, I should have lost 1.47lbs. This is based on the "overly generous" step count of the Fitbit Charge HR that occasionally gives me steps for typing.

According to my trending weight app I lost 1.5lbs during the time period.

In fact, since day 1, I've found Google Fit to be criminally insane in underestimating burns.

All you can do is verify and cross-check your burns and see if they make sense for you and if they appear to match the reality of your trending weight app...

The "gold" standard you may want to use are the MET tables in the compendium of physical activities. The speed of your walk or run has a heck of a lot to do with how many calories your activity burns.

PAV8888 wrote: »

blues4miles wrote: »

Another to say your Fitbit might be overestimating.

I use an UP3 and it gives me an INSANE amount of calories for walking and running. I have a theory the closer you are to a healthy weight the more accurate it is, but I think for us obese gals it does some multiplication that makes it incorrect.

Yesterday, for instance, it gave me 1,744 calories for my active burn (and 1,437 for resting). It thinks I went 7.85 miles. I walked for 3.25 miles at lunch, take a 1 mile round trip in and out of work every day, walked another 1 mile after work, and ran for 1.5 miles after work. So that's 6.75 in addition to any small amount of steps I might have taken going here or there, so it is already overestimating on distance. But even if we pretend I walked all of that, 1.5 miles ran and 6.35 miles walked... the standard calculation is .63 x (weight in lbs) x miles for calories burned running and .33 x (weight in lbs) x miles for calories burned walking. So that should be no more than 571 extra calories. And yet it gave me more than 3x that! Or even if you assume 100-120 cals per mile, that is still 800 more than the high end of that calculation.

I also think MFP's standard calories for walking/running overestimate. This has been my personal experience, I use a spreadsheet to average all my food eaten and exercise calories burned and estimate my weight loss and compare that to my actual weight loss. It has started to get a lot more accurate once I started using the above calculation instead of MFP numbers or even my HRM numbers.

For every anecdotal evidence leaning one way, there is another leaning the opposite way.

According to MFP and Google Fit, for the three weeks ending March 12, I should have gained 3.5lbs. This is based on Google's GPS/wifi distance logging and my phone's step calculations. I judge my phone's calculations to be fairly accurate. On some few occasions I have the phone on a charger as opposed to on me. Usually i am in the house when that happens and working on my workstation.

According to MFP and Fitbit, for the three weeks ending March 12, I should have lost 1.47lbs. This is based on the "overly generous" step count of the Fitbit Charge HR that occasionally gives me steps for typing.

According to my trending weight app I lost 1.5lbs during the time period.

In fact, since day 1, I've found Google Fit to be criminally insane in underestimating burns.

All you can do is verify and cross-check your burns and see if they make sense for you and if they appear to match the reality of your trending weight app...

The "gold" standard you may want to use are the MET tables in the compendium of physical activities. The speed of your walk or run has a heck of a lot to do with how many calories your activity burns.

Right, and I just said for me it didn't work, so I agree everyone has to fiddle around and see what works for them. Though I peaked at your profile, and you are another point in my theory that it is accurate the closer you are to a healthy weight.

I didn't pull those numbers from a hat, they are in this article in Runner's World: http://www.runnersworld.com/weight-loss/how-many-calories-are-you-really-burning which is from this published study: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15570150

I am just telling you my experience, but it frequently gives me 3000+ calories (inactive + active calories) for days that I slowly hobble for 3 miles at a walk, and then slowly shuffle for 3 miles at a jog. If that number was accurate, I would have lost 8 lbs in the last 3 weeks. I have actually lost 3 to 5 (3.3 according to 20 day average which is the same math TrendWeight uses, or 5 if you go by what the scale said 21 days ago versus what it said today). It seems pretty accurate on weekends (1800-2000) when I usually only get around 3k steps in, 1930 is my Scooby TDEE for sedentary. So I feel like there is a multiplier on the steps that is wrong. I'm not saying you or someone else doesn't have accurate numbers or can't burn that many calories, I'm saying I've done the math and it doesn't work out that I'd actually be using 3,000+ calories on all these days.

In sum:
UP3 expected weight loss: 8.3 lbs
Google Fit expected: 3.98 lbs
TDEE & using the run/walk formulas above expected: 3.54 lbs

Actual (using my 20-day moving average from 21 days ago compared to today): 3.335 lbs

We all have to play with our own numbers to see if they are working or not...the UP3 is still valuable for me as a step tracker (ballpark), sleep tracker, and some of the other notifications it has. I just don't trust the calorie burn. It claims to use MET values by the way.

Nothing is working right now and there are too many variables to isolate where the error is.

I would do a month trial using a TDEE calculator instead of any tracking devices. ( put them away in a drawer so you are not comparing results.

I just did a trial off the stats I had and your TDEE comes out to 2800+. This is including working out 6 days a week.

Take 500 off for 1lbs loss= 2300
Take 750 off for 1.5 loss= 2050.

Simplify everything so you know where the error is.
Log accurately and, because your workout routine is consistent, use the goal dirt iced from a TDEE estimate.

Here is the calculator I like to use.
http://www.fitnessfrog.com/calculators/tdee-calculator.html

Cheers, h.

minamina27 wrote: »

On the 'worst of such weeks my average daily calories were 1550 net.

I know that the calorie burn given is inflated and that is why I'm trying different proportions of it to eat back. I am just using the best tools I have available to me and I'm sure my fitbit HR is a better estimator than MFP or the machines.

The net data is only useful if you are 100% confident in your calorie burns from exercise.

I went through your diary and did the same math for you that I do for myself. Over the last 21 days your average calorie intake was 2221. (yes I dropped all your daily food calories into excel and averaged them)

If I go to Scooby's TDEE calculator (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) and plug in your weight, height and age I get a TDEE of 2289 if you are lightly active or 2522 if you are moderately active. If you were lightly active you are eating at maintenance. If you are moderately active you should have lost 1.8 lbs in the last 3 weeks. Since you say you just started stronglifts, it would not surprise me if you are retaining water and have in fact lost 1-2 lbs but the scale might not show it because your muscles are hanging on to extra water.

However, just like many people undercount their food calories many people overestimate their exercise calories and activity level. So please keep that in mind. It is highly likely that you are eating at maintenance. I'm sure you didn't realize you're averaging 2200 over the last 3 weeks. I'm sure it felt like less. It's possible you have water retention going on, it's also possible you are eating at maintenance.

blues4miles wrote: »

minamina27 wrote: »

On the 'worst of such weeks my average daily calories were 1550 net.

I know that the calorie burn given is inflated and that is why I'm trying different proportions of it to eat back. I am just using the best tools I have available to me and I'm sure my fitbit HR is a better estimator than MFP or the machines.

The net data is only useful if you are 100% confident in your calorie burns from exercise.

I went through your diary and did the same math for you that I do for myself. Over the last 21 days your average calorie intake was 2221. (yes I dropped all your daily food calories into excel and averaged them)

If I go to Scooby's TDEE calculator (http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/) and plug in your weight, height and age I get a TDEE of 2289 if you are lightly active or 2522 if you are moderately active. If you were lightly active you are eating at maintenance. If you are moderately active you should have lost 1.8 lbs in the last 3 weeks. Since you say you just started stronglifts, it would not surprise me if you are retaining water and have in fact lost 1-2 lbs but the scale might not show it because your muscles are hanging on to extra water.

However, just like many people undercount their food calories many people overestimate their exercise calories and activity level. So please keep that in mind. It is highly likely that you are eating at maintenance. I'm sure you didn't realize you're averaging 2200 over the last 3 weeks. I'm sure it felt like less. It's possible you have water retention going on, it's also possible you are eating at maintenance.

That is reassuring. Your Scooby's numbers are very similar to what I got through Fitmessfrog in my post above.

OP, as I said up thread. Do a month trial using TDEE instead of devices.

Cheers, h.

minamina27 wrote: »

kshama2001 wrote: »

I took a look at your food diary. On Sunday, your weights for this meal are suspiciously round:



Also, you are using user-created entries for the cabbage, carrots, and green beans. I get the wording for system entries from https://ndb.nal.usda.gov/ndb/foods

On other days, you managed to have the exact same amount of chicken and potatoes three days in a row. That never happens to me.

Try tightening up your logging for a few weeks.

Hi. I knew someone would pick up on that. However I have less than that but round it up to the nearest entry that I have previously added. I always overestimate not under. For instance if my chicken is 235g or 245 g I will log it as 250g thanks.

cmriverside wrote: »

The obvious answers having been already given, I'll ask if you've had bloodwork done in the past year?

My first thought is you are eating too much. Even if your device says you should eat 3000 calories, that's crazy high. I know I would have to be working out several hours a day every day to be needing that kind of fuel. I'm guessing your workouts aren't several hours a day. Heart rate devices aren't meant to be used one-for-one as a calorie using and calorie eating tool.

Why not plug in your numbers to Myfitnesspal's goal setting tool and use those numbers for a while? One way or the other, you have to pick a method and a number and stick with them long enough to get a baseline data set.

No I haven't had any blood tests done. Although my fitbit says ~3000 I never ever eat that much, oh actually a party or two throughout the year. Mfp gives me 1250 a day and my fit bit is set to lose 1.5 lb a week so adjusts according to my deficit.

I can't add to the great advice you've already received. But just wanted to say that I round up too most of the time, if I've pre logged something as 50g, I usually stop adding when I hit 46-48g on the scale and just leave the entry at 50 instead of fiddling about for 2-3g.

minamina27 wrote: »

I'm up for using tdee for a month. Could anyone advise what activity to use in the calculator for my level of exercise as in lighft, moderate, active? It won't decrease but I might add in a new class now and again. Thanks.

I'd put you on moderately active.

And yeah I think your fitbit way overestimates your activity.