A little confused on MFP goals/calories/weight loss

kkrn83 · March 2016

I have been using MFP since the beginning of November, religiously tracking everything I eat and working with a trainer. I have a few questions for more experienced users that I've still been confused a bit about in terms of my goals/losses/ect.

A little backstory - I was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes after a serious illness/hospitalization along with hypothyroidism at the end of January '15. At that point I weighed 270 lbs at 5'4 and 31 years old (female, here). Unfortunately due to the nature of my hospitalization (it was life/death and 6 weeks on life support/intubations/trach ect from complications from the flu)... I was unable to exercise for quite some time from all the muscle loss I experienced and just the general decrease in my health.

Since I was diagnosed with Diabetes, I drastically changed my eating habits and was taking 1,000 mg of Metformin with great results and my A1C was completely normal within 3 months. I slowly lost weight dropping from 270 - 226 from January '15 - November '15 (when I started with my trainer and tracking my food). I'm currently sitting at a weight of 185 give or take a few ounces. I had a month long plateau basically all of February. So between November - now, I've lost 41 lbs with adding exercise and dedicated food tracking.

My medication for my hypothyroidism was adjusted down recently and my Metformin dose was lowered to 500 mg/day and since then I saw a break in my plateau and have lost 3 lbs since.

Sorry for the novel, but I felt it was important information to share with you all before getting into my questions... And as a side note I am VERY grateful and proud of myself that I'm nearing the 100 lb mark in my weight loss in a relatively short amount of time. I see increase in strength and my quality of life is SO much better overall. However, of course with putting in tons of time, effort, dedication, and energy - when I am not seeing the results I'm hoping for, I'm human and get discouraged... so...

On MFP I have my activity listed as sedentary - besides my workouts, I'm not very active... but I do workout multiple times a day (20 minute HIIT, lunges, jumping jacks... I don't sit still a ton and make an effort to move).

My calorie intake to lose 1 lb a week on here is 1430. I have had an inbody assessment done at the gym (a few months ago) and to maintain I believe it said my calories should be 1510? 1530?/ day.

I workout at the gym 5 days a week on average (usually elliptical between 35-45 minutes depending on intensity) and my average calorie burn doing that is between 400-600 calories. I don't track any other workouts I do since I don't know the calorie burn, but I often do 30 day Shred level 2 or 3... Tone It UP HIIT workouts, Yoga workouts with some cardio at home.. in conjunction with the gym. I also do strength moves at the gym and different workouts on the equipment I don't have at home.

I typically do not eat all of my exercise calories back. Today I ate around 1600 calories and have a deficit (just from my elliptical calories) - not the additional workouts I've done at home - of 400.

I'm seeing a nutritionist tomorrow, so I'm hoping for more clarity but I guess my biggest questions are - should I be eating back all my exercise calories since I'm not accounting for additional workouts? Should I get a heart rate monitor to better track my actual calorie burn in a day? Am I sedentary if I'm working out over an hour a day? I just wonder if my settings are right because my loss seems disproportionate to what I'm eating/exercising.

My macros are pretty in line, however I can never stick to my fat macros - those are always over. My carb macros are always way lower than the suggested (because I stick to diabetic guidelines for the most part with those) and my protein is usually close or met (I've made a huge effort to get that up).

Sorry for the novel, I just feel a little frustrated, a lot motivated and am looking for some guidance

. If anyone took the time to read through all of this - THANK YOU!

TavistockToad · March 2016

Sounds like you're over thinking a bit. If you're losing weight doing what you're doing, why change it?

But yes, from the sounds if it you could eat more and still lose weight.

We'll done on what you've lost so far!

mirrim52 · March 2016

Are you losing faster or slower than you expect? You say that you have lost 3 lbs since adjusting your medication, but don't say how long ago that was.

You are losing quite fast. A month long plateau isn't very long, and you seem to be losing again.

Ignore the machine at the gym. It likely isn't accurate. Go by your own progress. If you are losing too fast, eat more.

2snakeswoman · March 2016

Because I don't have the mind of an accountant, I don't understand the particulars of adjusting for exercise, eating back exercise calories, etc. What I did was go to the fat2fit site and calculate what my calorie budget would be at lightly active and my goal weight. Then I subtracted about 150 calories from that, although some days I eat every calorie of that plus more (but not much more, so far). I decided just today that I'm going to record workouts in my planner rather than here to avoid the confusion of rising calorie budget.

katej37 · March 2016

Personally I would set activity level as lightly active based on what you are doing daily. I have a fitbit and have set myself as lightly active and my fitbit sends my cals burnt to mfp. Some days I eat them all back and others not. I am 42, 5ft tall and set my loss at 0.5lbs per week, currently MFP has me on 1490 cals based on my current weight. Have you updated your settings since losing that much? x

thunder1982 · March 2016

Ok so if I have read this right, you are losing just shy of 2pds a week since November. You've got about 40 pds till you reach a healthy BMI, not sure what your actual weight goal is but guessing about 130 so maybe up to 55 pounds to go. I cant quite tell if you think you are losing weight too fast and maybe should eat more? You mention disproportionate loss to eating exercise. Your goal is 1pd per week but you are losing close to 2pd.

If your not tracking the mini workouts you do at home then sedentary is not the correct setting. MFP sets a deficit based on your lifestyle and exercise calories are to be consumed on top of that. If you include those mini workouts as part of your lifestyle then you should change the setting or you could eat 100% of your exercise calories. Essentially both will give you more calories to eat and 2pds loss a week is probably aggressive given your medical history and the fact you are going to reach the overweight rather than obese range soon.

Are you hungry/tired/grumpy? I am guessing yes. More calories in will slow down your weight loss but maybe that would be a good thing at the moment.

kkrn83 · March 2016

Thanks guys!

To answer the questions -

I'm losing a bit slower than I'd expect. My thyroid medication was adjusted about a month ago and my other medication was adjusted about 3 weeks ago. To be honest, I didn't see the drop until the Metformin was adjusted down. It also could entirely be coincidence because I had been at a stall for a while and my body just released the weight.. I'm unsure. I also increased my workout intensity around that time as well.

Yes, I updated my settings. I always update my weight, but I didn't change my activity level. I have a fitbit but it's just not for me. Since I tend to do more strength training/cardio/hiit mixes, I felt the one I had didn't have any way of really reflecting those

. I will definitely talk to my nutritionist tomorrow about if I should adjust my activity!

kkrn83 · March 2016

thunder1982 wrote: »

Ok so if I have read this right, you are losing just shy of 2pds a week since November. You've got about 40 pds till you reach a healthy BMI, not sure what your actual weight goal is but guessing about 130 so maybe up to 55 pounds to go. I cant quite tell if you think you are losing weight too fast and maybe should eat more? You mention disproportionate loss to eating exercise. Your goal is 1pd per week but you are losing close to 2pd.

If your not tracking the mini workouts you do at home then sedentary is not the correct setting. MFP sets a deficit based on your lifestyle and exercise calories are to be consumed on top of that. If you include those mini workouts as part of your lifestyle then you should change the setting or you could eat 100% of your exercise calories. Essentially both will give you more calories to eat and 2pds loss a week is probably aggressive given your medical history and the fact you are going to reach the overweight rather than obese range soon.

Are you hungry/tired/grumpy? I am guessing yes. More calories in will slow down your weight loss but maybe that would be a good thing at the moment.

Hi! The lowest weight I've ever reached in my adult life was 165 and I was in really awesome shape. I have no idea what a weight below that looks like or if it's attainable for me. Currently my goal is 165 and if I exceed that, then that's awesome! I honestly feel like I'm not losing enough weight and with summer coming up, I know it will be more difficult to track any eating out I do (healthy or otherwise) because it isn't as accurate and without knowing how many calories I'm burning during other workouts - I guess I'm trying to prepare to be able to continue losing.

I'll look into changing those settings. I was debating getting an apple watch to track my calories more closely because I'm just so lost as to what I'm burning when I'm doing random activities throughout the day. I'm the type of person that when I commit to something, I like to do it 100% and the closer I get to my goal, the more I can do physically, and the stronger I get - the more I want to make sure I'm doing everything to the best of my ability

.

I honestly don't feel hungry very often. Sometimes it's even difficult to eat any of my exercise calories when I've really done a lot in a day.

A little confused on MFP goals/calories/weight loss

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