Accounting for massive calorie deficits.

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kwb1984
kwb1984 Posts: 6 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
A little about me, I'm 6'3" and weighed 292 last week. I've been tracking calories for about a month now and have been aiming for around 2300 a day. I started at 310 last month, so far so good. Weight loss is the goal - I'm doing some lifting and bodyweight exercises, I play some racquetball, but most of my exercise comes from riding my bike. I started with short three and four mile loops around the neighborhood, and I'm going longer as my legs and sit-bones get conditioned.

Here's my concern - I haven't been increasing my calorie intake on ride days. I just haven't felt the need, which I've been attributing to underreporting my calorie intake, and I haven't been worried about it. I've been expecting to get fatigue and hunger as my rides get longer, and to need to adjust my calorie goal accordingly, but that hasn't happened. My last ride was thirteen miles for example, a 1300 calorie burn if the exercise tracker is accurate. I've not been noticing the fatigue and hunger I was expecting, and the gap between my calculated calorie burn and what I'm eating has grown too big to be accounted for by lazy record keeping. I should be hungry and tired, but I don't feel it, and now I'm unsure what my next steps should be.

My rides are going to get longer and more frequent. I understand that both too few and too many calories can be detrimental to weight loss. I understand that assuming an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, I don't want to aim for more than a few hundred calories less than my calculated BMR. I guess my specific question is, now that I'm adding these large amounts of cardio, how do I adjust my calorie goal to maximize weight loss at a healthy rate? Do I add calories to my diet in proportion to the calories burned to maintain that few hundred less than BMR + exercise? Once I'm riding as much as I want to (I have a fifteen mile commute each way, I intend to ride it daily) that's going to be another 3000 or so calories added to my diet. That's a LOT, and seems wrong. Or do I listen to my body, and only add calories incrementally as I experience fatigue and hunger?
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  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    You shouldn't eat below your BMR ideally, that's what you burn in a coma.

    The strategy I would employ here is aiming for a calorie intake that allows for a loss of 1% of current weight. You do have more fat stores than others and can safely have a larger deficit and larger losses at this point than those who are smaller. However, waiting for negative side effects to kick in before making adjustments is foolhardy IMO. Eat at least some of your calorie burns back, start with 50% and see what happens. You can see where you need to increase/decrease based on average losses.

    You are large, larger bodies need more fuel to function, throw in the good bit of strenuous exercise you are doing and it becomes even more important to adequately nourish and fuel that activity. Waiting to get fatigued, workouts to suffer or worse, injuries to occur, is not the approach to be taking if you want to make this sustainable, healthy and safe.
  • tiny_clanger
    tiny_clanger Posts: 301 Member
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    I have similar problems, where I end up with massive (1000+) calorie deficits after exercise. I've found that relying on myself to feel hungry is not enough - my body will stop sending hunger signals when under stress, adn by the time I get the achy, "fritzy" feeling, it's too late and my energy stores are very depleted. The answer I've found is to force myself to eat something calorie dense after exercise - a sugary recovery bar with lots of water, a peanut butter and banana sandwich, that sort of thing. That seems to kick start my body into figuring out what it needs, then I might get very hungry very quickly (cue to eat some more) or thirsty, or something else.

    I'd suggest setting MFP to your desired weight loss target, then eating all your calories and exercise calories each day. Use a cycle computer to accurately calculate calories lost from that ride - it may be less than you think. I ride around 20 miles a day and only burn 600 calories by my computer
  • LazSommer
    LazSommer Posts: 1,851 Member
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    At 290 you have plenty of excess energy to pull from. As you drop more pounds you need to be aware of your energy exertion and also what you are taking in.

    The calorie burn is pretty high, but you are also bigger. It won't stay that high, but you will have to start making sure you're taking in enough calories (and protein and carbs) to recover from your rides.
  • LazSommer
    LazSommer Posts: 1,851 Member
    edited September 2016
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    Also to answer your question more directly, most eat back half of their reported exercise calories since these numbers are rarely spot on.

    Another method is to use a TDEE calculator such as the one located at scoobysworkshop.com to figure out your daily TDEE with your weekly exercise already figured out. Then, you just eat that amount every day regardless of if it's a workout day or not.
  • kwb1984
    kwb1984 Posts: 6 Member
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    Thanks for the input. Eating half my exercise calories back sounds like a great place to start.
    tiny_clanger wrote: »
    Use a cycle computer to accurately calculate calories lost from that ride - it may be less than you think. I ride around 20 miles a day and only burn 600 calories by my computer

    What computer do you use? Besides cadence, what would a dedicated bike computer do for me that I can't do with a smartphone app? I've been using my android to track miles, and I'm shopping for a Bluetooth heart rate monitor.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,861 Member
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    I use the formula 100 cal for every 5 km (or approx. 33 cal/mile).

    13 miles is 21 km.

    Using the formula, that's approx. 400 calories.


    Your 30 miles/day commute is approx. 50 km/day, and using the formula, that's about 1000 calories per day.


    If you are going to use an app, go with Strava. It seems to record the most accurate calories that we've seen.


    And also ...

    When I exercise a little bit (like maybe an hour), I eat about half my calories back.

    When I exercise a bit more (say, 1-3 or 4 hours), I eat about 75% of my calories back.

    When I exercise a lot (more than 4 hours a day), I eat about 95% of my calories back.
  • sunnybeaches105
    sunnybeaches105 Posts: 2,831 Member
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    Agree with eating back half, and also with not worrying about it until your body tells you to because you're not tracking in detail. If you're not carefully weighing everything you are likely underestimating your intake, but that's completely okay unless and until your weight loss stalls (underestimating), or if you find yourself too tired and miserable to get through your workouts (overestimating).
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    1300 calories for 13 miles seems very high.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,861 Member
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    1300 calories for 13 miles seems very high.

    It is. Highly unlikely he's burning 100 cal/mile. Maybe half that ... more likely about 1/3 of that.
  • kwb1984
    kwb1984 Posts: 6 Member
    edited September 2016
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    It may be, I'm no expert. I'm just going by what MFP tells me.
  • Francl27
    Francl27 Posts: 26,372 Member
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    kwb1984 wrote: »
    It may be, I'm no expert. MFP tells me sixty minutes of vigorous cycling comes out to 1324 kcal.

    MFP is really wtong about exercise calories.
  • sunnybeaches105
    sunnybeaches105 Posts: 2,831 Member
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    Francl27 wrote: »
    kwb1984 wrote: »
    It may be, I'm no expert. MFP tells me sixty minutes of vigorous cycling comes out to 1324 kcal.

    MFP is really wtong about exercise calories.

    They're estimates based on a statistics from a group on individuals. Like any set of statistics there will be individuals closer to, and further away from, the mean. The trick is managing the numbers and gathering our own personal data. I personally find MFP is very close for me.
  • Machka9
    Machka9 Posts: 24,861 Member
    edited September 2016
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    kwb1984 wrote: »
    It may be, I'm no expert. I'm just going by what MFP tells me.

    And vigorous cycling is like racing a time trial or something like that.

    I log myself in the 16-19 km/h light cycling category, even if I climbed our local mountain or did intervals. That may be underestimating a little bit, but that's OK. Better than overestimating the calories burned.

    The calories burned I get by selecting the light cycling category are quite similar to the calories I burn using the 100 cal/5 km formula.

  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 27,900 Member
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    kwb1984 wrote: »
    A little about me, I'm 6'3" and weighed 292 last week. I've been tracking calories for about a month now and have been aiming for around 2300 a day. I started at 310 last month, so far so good. Weight loss is the goal - I'm doing some lifting and bodyweight exercises, I play some racquetball, but most of my exercise comes from riding my bike. I started with short three and four mile loops around the neighborhood, and I'm going longer as my legs and sit-bones get conditioned.

    Here's my concern - I haven't been increasing my calorie intake on ride days. I just haven't felt the need, which I've been attributing to underreporting my calorie intake, and I haven't been worried about it. I've been expecting to get fatigue and hunger as my rides get longer, and to need to adjust my calorie goal accordingly, but that hasn't happened. My last ride was thirteen miles for example, a 1300 calorie burn if the exercise tracker is accurate. I've not been noticing the fatigue and hunger I was expecting, and the gap between my calculated calorie burn and what I'm eating has grown too big to be accounted for by lazy record keeping. I should be hungry and tired, but I don't feel it, and now I'm unsure what my next steps should be.

    My rides are going to get longer and more frequent. I understand that both too few and too many calories can be detrimental to weight loss. I understand that assuming an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, I don't want to aim for more than a few hundred calories less than my calculated BMR. I guess my specific question is, now that I'm adding these large amounts of cardio, how do I adjust my calorie goal to maximize weight loss at a healthy rate? Do I add calories to my diet in proportion to the calories burned to maintain that few hundred less than BMR + exercise? Once I'm riding as much as I want to (I have a fifteen mile commute each way, I intend to ride it daily) that's going to be another 3000 or so calories added to my diet. That's a LOT, and seems wrong. Or do I listen to my body, and only add calories incrementally as I experience fatigue and hunger?

    You've lost 18 pounds in a month - is that in line with the calorie deficit you set?
    • If so, since you aren't eating back exercise calories, you're eating more than you think.
    • However, if you are losing faster than you planned, you do need to eat back some exercise calories. If you're not hungry, go for calorie dense foods like peanut butter. I can down 500 calories of a peanut butter/banana/protein powder smoothie with no effort at all.
  • louise5779
    louise5779 Posts: 82 Member
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    As a rule of thumb I normally use a range of 7-8 cals for minute of high cardio burn. I have a Fitbit heart rate monitor and all my runs, Zumba classes,' body combat any high non stop cardio comes is 7-8 cals per minute. Never had it higher then that. I am only female 5'3" weighing 125 pounds though.
  • VintageFeline
    VintageFeline Posts: 6,771 Member
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    We cannot base his burns on our own, especially if you are a female. He's a 290lb male, it takes a lot of energy to move yourself. My burns now are half what they were when I started 50lbs ago and I ate most of my burns back then (admittedly from an HRM but i don't always do steady state either).
  • robertw486
    robertw486 Posts: 2,388 Member
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    Long term I personally think that excessive deficits are a bad thing. Once in a while not so much, as long as you eat and recovery properly over a couple days if needed.

    I've found quite a lack of information on maximum single day deficits in general. For long term endurance stuff or certain exercises, I just really get sick of eating back all the calories on certain days, and finding the balance between recovery food and what is smart/safe can be tricky.
  • kwb1984
    kwb1984 Posts: 6 Member
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    Rode to work last night and home this morning. Total of 31 miles. NOW I'm hungry. Frickin' starving, in fact.

    Mapmyride says that was a total of 2.5 kcal. I'll eat half of that back. I'll also use Strava next time and see if they agree. I've also got a heart rate monitor on order, that might have an effect on how these trackers count calories too?

    Now please excuse me while I go eat a horse and then go to bed.
  • SLLRunner
    SLLRunner Posts: 12,943 Member
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    kwb1984 wrote: »
    A little about me, I'm 6'3" and weighed 292 last week. I've been tracking calories for about a month now and have been aiming for around 2300 a day. I started at 310 last month, so far so good. Weight loss is the goal - I'm doing some lifting and bodyweight exercises, I play some racquetball, but most of my exercise comes from riding my bike. I started with short three and four mile loops around the neighborhood, and I'm going longer as my legs and sit-bones get conditioned.

    Here's my concern - I haven't been increasing my calorie intake on ride days. I just haven't felt the need, which I've been attributing to underreporting my calorie intake, and I haven't been worried about it. I've been expecting to get fatigue and hunger as my rides get longer, and to need to adjust my calorie goal accordingly, but that hasn't happened. My last ride was thirteen miles for example, a 1300 calorie burn if the exercise tracker is accurate. I've not been noticing the fatigue and hunger I was expecting, and the gap between my calculated calorie burn and what I'm eating has grown too big to be accounted for by lazy record keeping. I should be hungry and tired, but I don't feel it, and now I'm unsure what my next steps should be.

    My rides are going to get longer and more frequent. I understand that both too few and too many calories can be detrimental to weight loss. I understand that assuming an otherwise sedentary lifestyle, I don't want to aim for more than a few hundred calories less than my calculated BMR. I guess my specific question is, now that I'm adding these large amounts of cardio, how do I adjust my calorie goal to maximize weight loss at a healthy rate? Do I add calories to my diet in proportion to the calories burned to maintain that few hundred less than BMR + exercise? Once I'm riding as much as I want to (I have a fifteen mile commute each way, I intend to ride it daily) that's going to be another 3000 or so calories added to my diet. That's a LOT, and seems wrong. Or do I listen to my body, and only add calories incrementally as I experience fatigue and hunger?

    If you don't want to eat more often as your exercise increases, I suggest adding in some calorie dense foods. Examples would be trail mix, nuts, peanut/almond butters, and other high calorie foods. You don't want to wait until you get fatigued to eat a calorie goal that is appropriate for your size or your exercise level because then you might crash. Increase now in accordance with what you do, and increase as needed so that you are properly fueling your body.

    Congrats on your weight loss so far, and on being able to ride a bike as much as you do!

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