Maybe s tupid question

milesy1971 wrote: »

Firstly thanks for your help here

right lets paint the picture

Age 45
Weight 118kg
height 184cms
MFP set to sedentry
2 worksouts 40 minutes each a week (gym 2 days a week and general office work during the day)
lose 1kg a week

Sunday according to my garmin thingy 11500 steps (9.71kg)
2321 resting cals
4759 active cals
7080 total

Logged everything i ate MFP gives me goal of 1900 cals food i at of 1734 calls and exercise of 4448 which means i was short of eating according to |MFP 4244 - which means i should have lost a kilo in a day right

HELP

The activity numbers look way out of whack. Extremely active would give you a TDEE of 4020 (or so) total.

So your tracker doesn't look right.

For comparison sake, when I started, I was 111kg. I'm 54 and about 4 cm shorter than you. My average burn has been roughly 3300 cal/day. My average steps during that time is about 11,000.

The 1900 calories that is recommended for you looks about right if you really are sedentary (however, I would not set it to sedentary if you are averaging 11K steps per day).

My bet is that, like me, you can probably eat about 2300 a day (if you are stepping 11K) and lose at 1kg per week comfortably - but not linearly, i.e. it won't look like a straight line downward.

Keep in mind that my guesses for you are just educated guesses. You would be wise to see what some of the experts here advise.

At your weight and assuming this is fairly new activity (you haven't been doing 10k steps the past ten years) 10k steps I would set myself as active.

Lightly active exhausts itself around 8500. 10k is smack dab in the middle of active. Over 12500 you're flirting with the beginnings of very active. Over 15500 you're above very active.

I am shorter 172.25cm, older, and started above your weight but joined MFP at about 105kg when I decided that my subway and salads and other diet food diet was going to result in a nice rebound... assuming I could even white knuckle it far enough.

The lowest I NETTED on MFP was 1750 i think in the beginning and that was with 2350 Cal of food being consumed. This went up over time not down.

My tdee at the time was over 3000 and in fact I maintained a tdee of just over 3000 till I got into normal weight territory. However I note that only a few days exceeded tdees of 4k and only once or twice did I hit 5k (and those were 40k step days).

So. I will assume that your Garmin can count steps and that the problem is not there.

If it has a heart rate sensor and if you set your fitness level incorrectly it may be giving you more calories for your strenuous activity as reflected by a higher than normal base heart rate.

Or it may need some troubleshooting with Garmin to see why your active calories are so high with 11k steps.

I can see your tdee being in the mid to high 3ks easy with the activity you describe. But not 7k

Mid to high 3ks means that IF your accurately measure your food (which includes all drinks, all food, anything that touches your tongue or enters your mouth, accurately weighed or estimated including sauces, oils, dressings, butter or oil absorbed, and yes even the darn pepper have to be accounted for, and no, a spoon is NOT how you measure peanut butter!) and IF you use correct entries (hint: even mustard is not 0 calories. Check out some of the European 100g mustard entries. People don't use 5g of mustard, that's just what the bottle says a mythical person would use!) THEN (unless you're a statistical outlier) you should be able to lose substantially close to your 1kg a week rate by eating close to 2500 Cal a day

Note that severely undereating as described upthread sometimes slows down your activities and ends up slowing weight loss.

Note that a lot of exercise and activity also sometimes slows down weight loss. HOWEVER, it does ensure that you mostly lose fat and it also ensures you're healthier because of the exercise!

Since I assume health and sustainability are a factor, eat more reasonably than you are currently trying to. You have no business eating 1500 Cal at your current activity level and stats

Btw note that I very quickly switched to 750 as opposed to 1k deficits, keeping my deficit to below 25% of tdee even though I was still obese and technically I could have gone for the full 25%. The results were excellent and I got to high overweigh​ with a fat to lean mass lost rate of above 9:1 based on dexa scans I did at the time. And it was sustainabable. Sustainable beats quick!

Troubleshoot your Garmin with their support, review your food logs to see what items are worth the calories and which ones aren't so as to start working on your own way of eating long term, commit to meeting your deficit goals for at least 3-4 weeks (females with TOM fluctuations need 4-6 weeks ), then evaluate your progress using your weight levels from a trending weight app or website. And adjust based on reality.

TL/dr. Based on your stats and activity, I see 4k. I don't see 7k Cal. You have a Garmin issue. You also have an undereating issue unless you start exceeding 2k of accurately measured intake.

Can you do it? Yes, you can! Your research shows that you're ready to tackle this. Just realize that this is not a diet quicky and you're done. Work towards setting up how you will maintain your loss by making the right long term choices!

milesy1971 wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

At your weight and assuming this is fairly new activity (you haven't been doing 10k steps the past ten years) 10k steps I would set myself as active.

Lightly active exhausts itself around 8500. 10k is smack dab in the middle of active. Over 12500 you're flirting with the beginnings of very active. Over 15500 you're above very active.

I am shorter 172.25cm, older, and started above your weight but joined MFP at about 105kg when I decided that my subway and salads and other diet food diet was going to result in a nice rebound... assuming I could even white knuckle it far enough.

The lowest I NETTED on MFP was 1750 i think in the beginning and that was with 2350 Cal of food being consumed. This went up over time not down.

My tdee at the time was over 3000 and in fact I maintained a tdee of just over 3000 till I got into normal weight territory. However I note that only a few days exceeded tdees of 4k and only once or twice did I hit 5k (and those were 40k step days).

So. I will assume that your Garmin can count steps and that the problem is not there.

If it has a heart rate sensor and if you set your fitness level incorrectly it may be giving you more calories for your strenuous activity as reflected by a higher than normal base heart rate.

Or it may need some troubleshooting with Garmin to see why your active calories are so high with 11k steps.

I can see your tdee being in the mid to high 3ks easy with the activity you describe. But not 7k

Mid to high 3ks means that IF your accurately measure your food (which includes all drinks, all food, anything that touches your tongue or enters your mouth, accurately weighed or estimated including sauces, oils, dressings, butter or oil absorbed, and yes even the darn pepper have to be accounted for, and no, a spoon is NOT how you measure peanut butter!) and IF you use correct entries (hint: even mustard is not 0 calories. Check out some of the European 100g mustard entries. People don't use 5g of mustard, that's just what the bottle says a mythical person would use!) THEN (unless you're a statistical outlier) you should be able to lose substantially close to your 1kg a week rate by eating close to 2500 Cal a day

Note that severely undereating as described upthread sometimes slows down your activities and ends up slowing weight loss.

Note that a lot of exercise and activity also sometimes slows down weight loss. HOWEVER, it does ensure that you mostly lose fat and it also ensures you're healthier because of the exercise!

Since I assume health and sustainability are a factor, eat more reasonably than you are currently trying to. You have no business eating 1500 Cal at your current activity level and stats

Btw note that I very quickly switched to 750 as opposed to 1k deficits, keeping my deficit to below 25% of tdee even though I was still obese and technically I could have gone for the full 25%. The results were excellent and I got to high overweigh​ with a fat to lean mass lost rate of above 9:1 based on dexa scans I did at the time. And it was sustainabable. Sustainable beats quick!

Troubleshoot your Garmin with their support, review your food logs to see what items are worth the calories and which ones aren't so as to start working on your own way of eating long term, commit to meeting your deficit goals for at least 3-4 weeks (females with TOM fluctuations need 4-6 weeks ), then evaluate your progress using your weight levels from a trending weight app or website. And adjust based on reality.

TL/dr. Based on your stats and activity, I see 4k. I don't see 7k Cal. You have a Garmin issue. You also have an undereating issue unless you start exceeding 2k of accurately measured intake.

Can you do it? Yes, you can! Your research shows that you're ready to tackle this. Just realize that this is not a diet quicky and you're done. Work towards setting up how you will maintain your loss by making the right long term choices!

so i got onto Garmin and explained my issue - they had me do a total reboot and reload of the of the software

now for 10000 steps i have a BMR of 2336 and 2205 in active calories giving me 4541 total cals for standard day

this sounds a bit more realistic

That sounds more realistic however still a bit on the high side. I weigh 101kg and average 12k steps a day (over 6 months) and my average TDEE is 3600.

milesy1971 wrote: »

how do you know your TDEE is not on the low side?? (serious question )

anyway its closer and i guess after working with those numbers for a month or so i will know if they work or not

It's not as complicated as you and others are making it in this thread.

Let MFP or other TDEE calculators do the work and just pick the # based on your estimated activity level to start.

If the # is too low, you will lose weight too fast and will probably not feel well because you will not be eating well or enuf to satisfy your nutritional and energy needs.

If your # is too high, you will gain weight or not lose any weight at all.

In either case, increase or decrease the # as necessary every 4 wks in increments of 200-300 cals to start down to 100 cals when you get closer to the mark and you'll eventually find the "right" # that works for you.

Of course, you need to accurately log the food you eat too but people overcomplicate that as well.

Weigh and measure everything you can and guess-timate what you can't by using info already available in the MFP food database.

If you are under reporting cals for the food you eat, you will gain weight or lose weight at a lower rate than expected based on your calculated TDEE. If your calorie reporting is higher than it actually is, you will lose weight too quickly and not feel well because you are eating less than your calculated TDEE.

You can differentiate between errors caused by an incorrect TDEE from errors in logging by keeping your TDEE constant for at least a month or 2 to start while you refine the accuracy of your logging. Then you can adjust your TDEE as suggested above.

Bear in mind that:

All TDEE calculations are merely educated guesses based on certain mathematical algorithims and that the "right" TDEE for you may (and probably will) differ from the calculated #.

Trial and error over time is the only way to find the right # for you and that # probably will also change as your weight, activity and other factors change.