Had my metabolism tested - interesting results and some questions
Replies
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VintageFeline wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »VintageFeline wrote: »Okay, I know you don't want people to pick apart your diary but the first thing that stands out to me is a mix of measurements (cups vs grams). Cups are inaccurate for solids so if those are truly how you are measuring that's the first easy thing to tighten up. Putting solids on a food scale and weighing grams.
The above is true also. You can view your weekly average in the nutrition tab, lots of people, myself included, use the weekly average so some days we can eat more and compensate with a little less on other days.
And you can take our advice or not. 9/10 times it's about inaccurate and inconsistent logging, often coupled with overestimated activity/exercise calories, that's why it is largely the go to advice.
The advice to knuckle down for 6-8 weeks is still my thinking. You've had the testing, it shows you absolutely should be losing at the calorie level you think you're eating, you've ruled out your RMR being lower than the average so really the only thing remains is eating too much.
I still weigh everything. In my diary, it may say cups, but whatever the equivalent it lists in grams for that cup is what I'm measuring. Hard to explain but even when I measure in cups, I'm still measuring on the scale. I know that probably doesn't make sense. LOL
Can you tell me about the weekly average - I haven't explored all the different things on MFP so I'm still learning some of the features, etc.
I do appreciate the input, and again, my reason for not opening my diary is my past experiences with some pretty obnoxious people. I try to be a positive, supportive person and not get involved in drama, and unfortunately others are not so inclined.
When you are using the mobile app, scroll to the bottom of your diary page, there is a nutrition button. Once in there you can view calories and switch to week view. It will show you net and gross calories. Second number down is your weekly net average. In your settings you can adjust what this shows, a rolling average or a week to week starting on a certain (my week shows Mon-Sun for example). If all that makes sense?
That way you can "bank" calories from one day to use on another day if you like.
And I get the cups thing, others do it (though it creates more washing up!).
Thank you! And also, thank you for being respectful and kind with your responses. I appreciate it.2 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »TimothyFish wrote: »midwesterner85 wrote: »OP, I've been in this situation a few times before, with the exception of having an RMR test. I was losing at a certain calorie level, albeit slowly, and then suddenly stopped losing. I weighed every morsel that could be measured with weight and otherwise measured liquids. I used an activity tracker as well, and yet weight loss just magically and instantly stalled. Everyone on the forums was convinced that I must be eating while I'm sleeping without knowing it or lying about weighing my food.
As it turned out, I was in true plateaus. The worst of which lasted 6 months. After 2 months, I got really frustrated and was about to just plain give up. In compromise rather than give up, I gave up half the time (basically the every other day diet). I still logged everything, but was eating to satisfaction with no restrictions on alternating days. This ended up being about 10K calories on those days. On the diet days, I ate 500 calories per day max. Of course, this was a huge surplus and I should have immediately started gaining weight fast, right?! Nope, because I was in a true plateau. Day-to-day fluctuations became larger, but my weight still hovered around the same base number. After 6 weeks of that, I returned to a normal daily deficit because I figure I had proven I was in a true plateau and if I kept eating at a deficit, maybe there would be a "whoosh" some day. In fact, that is what happened. About 2 months after returning to a normal daily deficit, I finally ended up losing about 9 lbs. in a few days and it stayed off (i.e. not just normal daily fluctuations).
It might be that you are truly in a plateau. If that is the case, then keep eating at a small deficit and trust that you will eventually experience a whoosh. Since you have a pretty good idea of what your RMR is and you track your food in the most accurate method possible, then you should be able to keep at a deficit even if you don't see the loss right away.
10,000 in one day? I'm calling that nonsense. You could literally eat two gallons of ice cream and still not have eaten 10,000 calories. You could eat a restaurant meal six times and not have 10,000 calories. Even Tour de France riders who are on a mountain stage aren't consuming that many calories. It seems to me that you have just demonstrated that your problem was inaccurate calorie counting, not some "true plateau" while waiting for a "swoosh".
Hey some of us did not become obese by only over eating by 100 calories a day.
It is my view on 10,000 calorie days many of them will just ride out the backdoor.
I'm sure you're right, on both counts. What I don't understand is why anyone would continue eating when they've already begun to incorporate plunger lifts and bowl pushups into their fitness routine.2 -
Have you had your thyroid checked? Sorry if this has already been asked. At the start of the year I couldn't lose weight to save my life. I couldn't have been more diligent in my efforts, tracking, portioning, weighing EVERYTHING. To the gram.
Just got my blood work back. My thyroid is not functioning properly. With a little bit of medication, I have already begun losing.1 -
MaineMom76 wrote: »Tacklewasher wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
2 lbs per week would be (IMO) too aggressive.
So to lose 1 lb per week, you would need to eat 1300 plus any exercise calories (assuming RMR is about the same as NEAT). So a deficit of 500 calories per day. At 1600 (I know you said to ignore it) you'd lose in the neighborhood of a half pound per week.
Where do you get the 1300 calories from? The RMR is if I were to lie in bed doing nothing all day, not eat or drink or move. It doesn't take into account daily activity, or exercise calories.
Then I was unclear on what RMR is. If RMR is the same as BMR, than your NEAT (what MFP uses) is 20-25% more than that. So add 25% (2250) and deduct 500 (1750), or 1000 (1250) to lose 1 or 2 lbs, but eat back you exercise calories.1 -
Have you had your thyroid checked? Sorry if this has already been asked. At the start of the year I couldn't lose weight to save my life. I couldn't have been more diligent in my efforts, tracking, portioning, weighing EVERYTHING. To the gram.
Just got my blood work back. My thyroid is not functioning properly. With a little bit of medication, I have already begun losing.
I am hypothyroid and have been on medication since 2011. My levels were checked recently and are good. 3 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Okay, I know you don't want people to pick apart your diary but the first thing that stands out to me is a mix of measurements (cups vs grams). Cups are inaccurate for solids so if those are truly how you are measuring that's the first easy thing to tighten up. Putting solids on a food scale and weighing grams.
The above is true also. You can view your weekly average in the nutrition tab, lots of people, myself included, use the weekly average so some days we can eat more and compensate with a little less on other days.
And you can take our advice or not. 9/10 times it's about inaccurate and inconsistent logging, often coupled with overestimated activity/exercise calories, that's why it is largely the go to advice.
The advice to knuckle down for 6-8 weeks is still my thinking. You've had the testing, it shows you absolutely should be losing at the calorie level you think you're eating, you've ruled out your RMR being lower than the average so really the only thing remains is eating too much.
I do weekly average as well, eat more some days and less others. If that's the case, and the 1200 days were actually 1200, that could check out and the higher cals days would probably be offset. But if the 1200 days were actually not completed logs, who knows what they were. Could've knocked out any deficit for the week right there. I don't see that OP answered in regards to that though.0 -
MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
I'd say it was impossible to give a recommendation based on that without knowing your activity level. IMO, if you are not obese or very lean, TDEE-20% is reasonable.0 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
I'd say it was impossible to give a recommendation based on that without knowing your activity level. IMO, if you are not obese or very lean, TDEE-20% is reasonable.
That's fair, and I thank you for your honesty. Well, considering the woman called me a "really big girl," LOL, I guess you would say I'm obese. Technically I am. As a former athlete, I still have a lot of muscle, so people have told me that it doesn't look like I weigh 233 but I do, and so that puts me in the obese category.
I do home workouts - HIIT, interval, total-body workouts (Insanity-type workouts if you know them?) 6 days/week for 30 minutes each session. I also teach a Zumba class one day/week for 60 minutes. My Zumba class is more like a hip hop dance class, so more intense than a regular Zumba class but it's straight cardio obviously, no weights or anything.
I work from home, so other than running errands, cleaning the house, etc., and taking the kids to and from school, I'm usually on my laptop. 0 -
@MaineMom76 Understand that even trained professionals overestimate caloric intake by ~300 kcals. This data was observed following an experiment conducted in conjunction with the National Weight Control Registry. So people aren't picking on you - this is simply a very difficult skill to master and carries a great deal of inaccuracy - to the point that regulatory authorities allow a 20% margin of error in calculation.
The critical point to all of this is awareness and for you to build a routine that builds upon your strengths and enables your goals.
As for the negative people and those who exist to make the rest of us suffer - use the ignore feature liberally.3 -
I'd be careful with some of the numbers given here for foods. Just as an example, it took me quite some time to find an accurate representation of chicken breast, despite many being "verified". Salmon is worse--many people log the entry that has literally half the calories of regular salmon. Right there could be 200 calories in a day. Even if you're measuring, if something isn't working, it's probably not because the world is against you (as I used to feel).
Fluid retention also accounts for a lot of weird plateaus and fluctuations. I've had maintenance down to a science over the last years of experimenting and 6 months of success, but I vary across 3 lbs every week. Sometimes I know why (more carbs, sodium, workout has me sore, workout has me depleted of water, that time of the month, haven't pooped in a day or so), and sometimes I'm not sure why, but it works itself out. Muscle gains have played a role in that too, though how much I can't say. Measuring yourself helps.
But you're definitely right that, over time in a nonlinear way, you will be losing weight if you eat at any deficit. Change up what you're doing for exercise or nutrition. Shake things up for your body. go over that diary with a fine-toothed comb. I wouldn't suggest eating way less, because you want that RMR to stay up there. Maybe do some weights to get it even higher (though not as high as some may claim).
Best of luck!4 -
MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
Personally, I like TDEE minus 5 times your current body weight in pounds.0 -
I don't have any insight, but can I just say how jealous I am of your metabolism?? I also am hypothyroid, and my metabolism test resulted in my maintenance calories being 1,340. With how overweight I am/was at the time, losing 2lbs a week should have been easy, but not with that kind of metabolism
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MaineMom76 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
I'd say it was impossible to give a recommendation based on that without knowing your activity level. IMO, if you are not obese or very lean, TDEE-20% is reasonable.
That's fair, and I thank you for your honesty. Well, considering the woman called me a "really big girl," LOL, I guess you would say I'm obese. Technically I am. As a former athlete, I still have a lot of muscle, so people have told me that it doesn't look like I weigh 233 but I do, and so that puts me in the obese category.
I do home workouts - HIIT, interval, total-body workouts (Insanity-type workouts if you know them?) 6 days/week for 30 minutes each session. I also teach a Zumba class one day/week for 60 minutes. My Zumba class is more like a hip hop dance class, so more intense than a regular Zumba class but it's straight cardio obviously, no weights or anything.
I work from home, so other than running errands, cleaning the house, etc., and taking the kids to and from school, I'm usually on my laptop.
Based on that, I'd do a rough estimate of 2100-2200 for average weekly TDEE, although it could be higher I'd think it was a decent place to start. I'd cut 500-750 (okay because obese, IMO), but given that it sounds like there's no reason to rush it maybe err toward the 500 (I know a lot of people recommend a lower goal, but for me 500 always worked better as otherwise the losses would be harder to see with the fluctuations). That would end up around 1600, which I know is where you've been, so probably is not that helpful!2 -
lemurcat12 wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »lemurcat12 wrote: »MaineMom76 wrote: »So I guess a followup question would be...
If you totally ignored my comment about eating 1600 calories and I just told you, hey, my RMR is 1800, how many calories would you recommend me to eat to lose 1-2 pounds per week, what would be your recommendation? I know some people say TDEE minus 20%. Some people say to use MFP's calculations, etc. I'm just curious what would be your recommendation based on the RMR and not based on my history of eating a certain amount of calories.
I'd say it was impossible to give a recommendation based on that without knowing your activity level. IMO, if you are not obese or very lean, TDEE-20% is reasonable.
That's fair, and I thank you for your honesty. Well, considering the woman called me a "really big girl," LOL, I guess you would say I'm obese. Technically I am. As a former athlete, I still have a lot of muscle, so people have told me that it doesn't look like I weigh 233 but I do, and so that puts me in the obese category.
I do home workouts - HIIT, interval, total-body workouts (Insanity-type workouts if you know them?) 6 days/week for 30 minutes each session. I also teach a Zumba class one day/week for 60 minutes. My Zumba class is more like a hip hop dance class, so more intense than a regular Zumba class but it's straight cardio obviously, no weights or anything.
I work from home, so other than running errands, cleaning the house, etc., and taking the kids to and from school, I'm usually on my laptop.
Based on that, I'd do a rough estimate of 2100-2200 for average weekly TDEE, although it could be higher I'd think it was a decent place to start. I'd cut 500-750 (okay because obese, IMO), but given that it sounds like there's no reason to rush it maybe err toward the 500 (I know a lot of people recommend a lower goal, but for me 500 always worked better as otherwise the losses would be harder to see with the fluctuations). That would end up around 1600, which I know is where you've been, so probably is not that helpful!
Thank you!! It is helpful to have another opinion based on numbers, etc. I appreciate it!0 -
Mary_Anastasia wrote: »I don't have any insight, but can I just say how jealous I am of your metabolism?? I also am hypothyroid, and my metabolism test resulted in my maintenance calories being 1,340. With how overweight I am/was at the time, losing 2lbs a week should have been easy, but not with that kind of metabolism
Are you on medication now? It's been about 6 years for me, so I've been medicated for a while.
I also credit my very active sports life prior to adulthood with giving me enough muscle to keep my metabolism faster. I'm all about the muscle!0 -
@lemurcat12 is that a TDEE (as I read it to be in your post) or NEAT?
I thought a basic sedentary NEAT was RMR x 1.25 so the number you gave (in my thoughts) was without exercise.
1800 x 1.25 = 2250 NEAT
1lbs deficit = 1750 NEAT
1.5lbs deficit= 1500 NEAT
I am asking for my own clarity, not nit-picking.
Cheers, h.0 -
@MaineMom76 Understand that even trained professionals overestimate caloric intake by ~300 kcals. This data was observed following an experiment conducted in conjunction with the National Weight Control Registry. So people aren't picking on you - this is simply a very difficult skill to master and carries a great deal of inaccuracy - to the point that regulatory authorities allow a 20% margin of error in calculation.
The critical point to all of this is awareness and for you to build a routine that builds upon your strengths and enables your goals.
As for the negative people and those who exist to make the rest of us suffer - use the ignore feature liberally.
Thank you - I am grateful for constructive help but I have definitely had some negative experiences on these boards. I used to engage, but now I just ignore. Liberally. As you suggested. LOL4 -
VintageFeline wrote: »Can we not turn this into yet another Midwesterner bragging about eating 10'000 calories regularly and not gaining debate?
Apparently the 10,000 number has been discussed in the past.
https://reddit.com/r/askscience/comments/2rr3ip/if_i_ate_10000_calories_in_one_go_would_my_body/0 -
I know what you mean. Take random product X. Label says 1 cup (28g) = 130 calories. I weigh, and have 20g of product X. Use the barcode scanner and the entry that comes up is 1 serving = 1 cup = 130 cals. So I do the math: 20/28 = .714 so I log .714 servings. And my log shows I had .714 cups...MaineMom76 wrote: »
I still weigh everything. In my diary, it may say cups, but whatever the equivalent it lists in grams for that cup is what I'm measuring. Hard to explain but even when I measure in cups, I'm still measuring on the scale. I know that probably doesn't make sense. LOL
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middlehaitch wrote: »@lemurcat12 is that a TDEE (as I read it to be in your post) or NEAT?
I thought a basic sedentary NEAT was RMR x 1.25 so the number you gave (in my thoughts) was without exercise.
1800 x 1.25 = 2250 NEAT
1lbs deficit = 1750 NEAT
1.5lbs deficit= 1500 NEAT
I am asking for my own clarity, not nit-picking.
Cheers, h.
No, I wasn't using NEAT.
True that basic sedentary TDEE is 1.2 x BMR. I was thinking RMR was a bit higher than BMR already, but maybe wasn't giving enough credit for non exercise daily movement.
My intent was to add exercise/activity to RMR based on the OP's statement that she wasn't that active outside of planned activity, exercised (circuit training type videos) 30 min/day most days, with one longer day and one rest day.
Could have been on the low side, but I think a decent starting place (I always start conservative when calculating TDEE) that I'd adjust if necessary going forward, if it were me.2
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