Exercise calorie confusion

AmberGebell wrote: »

mitch16 wrote: »

Regardless of what your fitbit says if you are not losing weight (barring any unknown health issues), you are either overestimating your calories burned or underestimating the calories you are eating.

I am just confused why people are saying that " I am overestimating my calories" SMDH, Obviously My Fitbit is and I am not really getting the answers I am looking for!! It's a bit frustrating, I am asking for help and advice. I am aware there is a problem, Just wondering what to do about it such as either not any exercise calories back ( because obviously overestimating) take a diet break for a week and eat at maintenance, turn off my HR option on my Fitbit while I am not working out, change my exercise option to lightly active"? I am hearing a lot of the problem but I am not feeling I am getting a solution

Start by eating 50% back. Keep at it for 6 weeks or so and see how much weight you lose compared to what you are trying to lose. If you are losing too fast, or finding yourself too hungry, add 100 cals a day until you get your loss rate where you want it. Losing faster than plan is not what you should be shooting for.

It takes some playing around to figure out the sweet spot for yourself and your gear. In the day you had a picture of above, shoot for being under your calorie goal by 1000.

AmberGebell wrote: »

So basically what I am hearing is that " Plateaus never happen" and either I am overestimating or eating at maintenance? So this whole weight loss process you should either be losing, gaining or staying the same, and that all comes down to weather you are in a deficit or not? Is that correct

Yup. I know some people hate the scale and go by measurements, but for me the scale is the best indicator of if I'm doing tings right. Just have to not focus on the individual readings and look at the trend. I use trendweight but also look at Libra (android). IOS has Happy Scale.

As for plateaus, or stalls, they can happen. I can stay the same for 2 weeks and then lose 5-6 pounds in a couple of days. Overall I've lost at close to the rate I was trying for but it has come off in whooshes.

You can try NOT eating any calories you burn from just "steps" on FitBit and only try eating 50% of the true exercise calories back (cardio only). I sometimes log strength training and yoga at 1 calorie, so I'm not tempted to think I can eat more :-)

It helped me. (I think when you are relatively close to goal weight eating normal daily step calories back, even if you are getting 20,000 steps in, if not activity that raises your HR significantly and for long periods of time may not help in losing weight. If you are morbidly obese/moderately obese, then encouraging steps & counting things like cleaning/chores, etc. is good.

Example: When I weighed 227, I could get away with it, but at 177, I can't- I'm 5'4".) Something to consider :-)

AmberGebell wrote: »

I lost 3 lbs!! 157

lol

mitch16 wrote: »

If you aren't losing weight (and you're not gaining either) then you are in maintenance--you are taking in as many calories as you are burning.

If you are wearing a Fitbit and manually logging your weight training, then you are double counting. Tighten up on your logging and consider eating back fewer of your exercise calories and the weight loss should come.

Unless you enter the total wrong time of the workout of manual entry - there is no "doubling" that many of the posts claim.

Fitbit is a replace only method - they don't add.

Fitbit would be better to log the weight lifting in manually, but either side doesn't cause a double counting.

And Fitbit database would be just as small calorie burn as MFP is for Weights - and very realistic if doing sets and reps 5-15 and rests 2-4 min. 250/hr is hardly overrated.

@AmberGebell - also should be mentioned that amount of deficit for that little left to lose would likely cause stress and body adapting, mainly you moving less daily, possibly seen in steps decrease. So water weight and slower TDEE - less weight loss.

But that's the other aspect of the adjustment that happens to show up under exercise that many commenting here perhaps aren't aware of - it's not just exercise - it's daily life too above and beyond what you selected on MFP.

So to recommend just eating back 50% is foolish too without understanding how it works.

You could have very active day with no workout and big adjustment.
You could have big workout and otherwise lazy day and have no adjustment.

Some of the other workouts could be inflated though - are the longer ones with big calorie burn per HR interval in nature?
That's another inflated calorie burn.

Have you confirmed the stride length for your average daily pace is correct by doing a known distance walk?
If you do a lot of steps daily to keep active, having it set to exercise pace walk when majority isn't that fast will cause inflation too.

And then food logging as mentioned.

But if all that is pretty good...

If body is stressed out now from eating level - sure you could just keep eating less and less - and eventually the body can't adapt anymore and you will create a deficit and lose weight (well at least fat, you could gain upwards of 20 lbs of stress water weight to mask that on the scale).
But imagine how good the workouts are going to be if the body is that stressed out.

Most find it wiser for long term success to eat as much as they can and still lose fat weight, not as little as they can.

I don't think your calories are right, but don't know your activity levels. I'd say 1800 calories burned a day is most peoples dream, realistically on a workout day most will only burn up to 1000 calories over their BMR. (usually you will be 250-500 over BMR from daily activity depending on your activity levels.)