Calorie comparison!
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Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol
Super Walmart haha!
FYI I didn't mean that I get 10,000 by ONLY going grocery shopping. I just meant that on top of being in an office (my regular life), a Walmart trip and a short walk can get me there.
I get 5k-6k just at work. I work in an office in a COMPOUND so have to park quite far out (1,000 steps each way is 2,000 total just to my car). Think of it like a college campus just to get to my office. I just got a standing desk, so get a couple of extra steps from just pacing around my cube while I'm on the phone, since it's easier to step away. Literally, the trip to the bathroom and back is 250 steps. I pee like every hour. 250 x 8 = 2,000. Plus going to meetings (some on different floor, so another 1,000+ steps throughout the day).
Then I go to Walmart, where I like to go down most isles just to look at the things that I can't eat and then to the beauty section/cookware/whatever. I usually end up buying a new kitchen toy or new Tupperware as a reward for not buying ice cream. Then back out to the parking lot and I live in an apartment complex, so can't just park IN the house/garage. Extra walking.
If I take an extra walk on my lunch break, I'll usually hit my steps. I just putter around a lot.
Pro tip, put your step tracker on your shoe instead of your arm if you're pushing a grocery cart. This works for being a hairdresser, too, so that you're not counting arm swings.
Ahhhh. that makes more sense. I thought you were saying if you go grocery shopping, bring them in and only take a 30 minute walk that was 10,000 and I was like either I'm doing it wrong or you have super short legs idk. lol.
I can usually get my 10,000 by the time I get home from work if I walk on my breaks and just making trips to the bathroom or the kitchen to refill my water/grab my lunch.
Yeah, no XD
I meant that it doesn't take a LOT of effort on top of my daily life to hit the 10k steps. Apologies for the earlier wording.0 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol
This im curious about too, I can go for a walk at night 1hr-2hrs get up every hour at work and grocery shop for half an hour and still only be around (k
Infact I just got back from grocery shopping and only got 1,200 either my fitbit is really messed up or Im super sedentary1 -
So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)1 -
laurenebargar wrote: »Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol
This im curious about too, I can go for a walk at night 1hr-2hrs get up every hour at work and grocery shop for half an hour and still only be around (k
Infact I just got back from grocery shopping and only got 1,200 either my fitbit is really messed up or Im super sedentary
@laurenebargar See above.0 -
So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)
There were a couple negative adjustments in her food diary.
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So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)
If so, then I 100% concede my point and raise a white flag on the issue.1 -
cmriverside wrote: »So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)
There were a couple negative adjustments in her food diary.
so then it wouldn't really matter what her activity level is set to because her fitness tracker knows her activity level better and is adjusting either up or down accordingly.
So, I guess I would assume that logging is inaccurate and that should be tightened up.
(Just trying to work through the logic of what I would think if this was happening to me. Not an accusation or rude statement at all.)0 -
cmriverside wrote: »So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)
There were a couple negative adjustments in her food diary.
so then it wouldn't really matter what her activity level is set to because her fitness tracker knows her activity level better and is adjusting either up or down accordingly.
So, I guess I would assume that logging is inaccurate and that should be tightened up.
Unless her (wrist worn) Apple watch is counting all that arm movement as a hairdresser.
I don't know enough about trackers to even comment, I lost all my weight without one.
It's still calories in/out, regardless. I would try a couple months without the tracker if there was an issue like not being able to figure out how it works.
I still think this is mostly a logging food accuracy problem combined with cheat weekends.0 -
cmriverside wrote: »So to recap page 2, she needs to tighten up on her logging and set a less aggressive weight loss goal....?
Idk, my one issue with setting an activity level based on job is that 2/7 days you're likely not at work but still getting calorie levels based on the 5/7 days. So 2/7 (weekends), you're not in deficit.
OP, are you actually hitting the higher steps EVERY day, even when not working?
I can see where you're coming from but if OP has negative adjustments on then even if she was less active on those other 2 days a week wouldn't that compensate if there's less movement?
Assuming she's using a tracker and not her phone or something else to calculate steps (can't remember if it was mentioned and i'm too lazy to go look right now)
There were a couple negative adjustments in her food diary.
so then it wouldn't really matter what her activity level is set to because her fitness tracker knows her activity level better and is adjusting either up or down accordingly.
So, I guess I would assume that logging is inaccurate and that should be tightened up.
(Just trying to work through the logic of what I would think if this was happening to me. Not an accusation or rude statement at all.)
Now that that's been resolved, there are still quite a few generic entries, like "1 bagel" "2 slices of bread" "0.5 banana".
That's the only logical solution and OP needs to tighten up on logging.
It's been a pleasure solving this with all of you!
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cmriverside is spot is spot on- it is all calories in versus calories out (CICO). I always suggest that you set your MFP settings at sedentary, and your weight loss goals (.5 lb per week, 1lb per week, etc) to what you want. This will give you a calorie intake that you will lose weight at if you are a couch potato. Then you connect your activity tracker and the additional calories from your activity will add to your daily goal if you have the rest of your setting set up properly. Then you can decide how much of your activity calories you want to consume back. I hear a lot of people on the message boards say half. When I am in weight loss mode, I generally don't eat back any activity calories unless I have a mega workout or run a 5k or something like that. When I am in maintenance mode I have to eat back some or all of my activity calories or I will continue to lose weight.
Good luck!0 -
Did you just start trying to lose weight a month ago? Are you a premenopausal woman? Is your exercise routine also new? If yes to any or all:
Consider the possibility that moderate water weight gain is temporarily masking moderate fat loss.
Many women gain up to several pounds of water weight at some point during their menstrual cycle, and it happens at different points for different women. Until you've been at a mostly-consistent calorie deficit for a full cycle plus a bit, you won't necessarily know what's normal for you. (As an aside: I recognize that some people shouldn't weigh daily for psychological reasons, but not weighing daily does have the disadvantage of requiring more time to understand your body's routine fluctuation patterns.)
A new exercise routine will make your body hold onto water for muscle repair. Similar things happen via inflammation if there's a healing injury, virus/infection, or the like.
Other things can add water weight, too, like eating more than normal sodium or carbs (even if it's a perfectly healthy amount of either); it's just a normal part of the body processing those foods. Stress can do it, even.
Water weight isn't fat. And fluctuating water weight is a normal, healthy thing. But, especially if timing is just right (wrong?
), it can hide moderate fat loss temporarily.
But don't stop drinking water: Over-restricting can increase retention, not decrease it. Just drink a normal, sensible amount.
Above posters may be right about activity levels, food logging issues, etc. But if this is your first month, I'd suggest going on patiently for another 2-3 weeks before doing anything radically different.
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Update: I’ve played around with my goal settings & I’ve changed my activity to “lightly active” and to lose 1lb a week which gave me 1,640 calories a day, when I changed it to not active & lose .5 a week it gave me 1,660 a day. My personal goal is to shoot for 1,500-1,600 a day!
My goal is to not eat any exercise calories!
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laura_johnson15 wrote: »Update: I’ve played around with my goal settings & I’ve changed my activity to “lightly active” and to lose 1lb a week which gave me 1,640 calories a day, when I changed it to not active & lose .5 a week it gave me 1,660 a day. My personal goal is to shoot for 1,500-1,600 a day!
My goal is to not eat any exercise calories!
I think this sounds like a great place to start! Remember to not get discouraged if you don't see the weight/inches fall off right away from this change. Give it a few weeks to really decide if this new plan is working for you and your body!0 -
laura_johnson15 wrote: »Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
I use my food scale and measure everything I eat
*MOST* of the things you eat. There are still quite a few generic entries, like "1 bagel" "2 slices of bread" "0.5 banana". Keep in mind that those slices are NOT created equal and need to be weighed too.
You also overate Friday and Saturday. I didn't go past that, but keep in mind that any surplus can wipe out a lot of deficit.
Most accurate plan of action would be to actually weigh your breads, fruits, packaged items, and to set yourself to sedentary or lightly active and eat back ~half of your exercise calories.
I really appreciate you being so helpful! I played with my settings & for not active & to lose .5 it had me at 1,660 but for lightly active and 1lbs a week it has me at 1,640. I’m thinking I will stay 1,500 the days I don’t work out & 1,600 the days I do, besides not measuring certain things, and over eating on Friday & Saturday do you see any other improvements I can make? I’ve been out of town at weddings 3 weekends in a row so I’m hoping not traveling for awhile will help! I do like to splurge a little on saturdays and I try to eat at maintainance. I tried to save calories throughout the week for it & I’m still 500 calories below my weekly goal via my weekly report! I’m assuming not weighing everything can be a factor?
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I've read the whole thread and in my opinion, until youve had some time to get your tracking more consistant, your weekly goal shouldn't even be considered for anything at this point. The day you weigh all your food is now going to be your day 1 so that 500 calories does not exist now.4
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laura_johnson15 wrote: »Hey everyone! I’ve been playing with my calorie intake and was hoping to get some insight! I’m 24, weigh 168 & my goal is 150! I’ve been up & down from 168-169 for a month! I have had my calorie intake to be to lose 1.5lbs a week at 1,700 after reading some posts I’ve seen most people recommend it to be 1- .5 lbs a week which would make my calories 1,950! Any thoughts or opinions?
I’m pretty active, I’m a hairstylist so I get lots of steps & I workout 3-5 Times a week with weights and HIIT training! I did decide to put the scale away to stop the habit of weighing myself everyday so I can focus on physical progress and not base my success on a number!
How many times do you weigh yourself? I’d like to try once a week and then possibly once a month and do measurements every week! The scale has been really effecting me negatively lately and it’s becoming obsessive.
Thoughts?
thank you!!
You've been maintaining for a month. The solution to not losing weight is never to consume more calories. You can either tighten up your logging, lower your calorie goal a couple of hundred calories, or stop eating exercise calories, or some combination of those things.
You have at least a month's worth of data. In my opinion, it's kind of silly to try to get MFP to figure out the right calorie goal by playing with activity settings and the weight-loss-per-week goal once you have a reasonable amount of data. You know you don't lose weight on 1700 per day with your current logging practices. You can either change your logging practices or change how many calories you consume as accounted for by your current logging practices.2 -
laura_johnson15 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »Your diary suggests that you are not losing weight because you are eating more than you think. Get and use a food scale. If you are not losing weight at 1700, you will definitely not at 1950 using the logging methods you are doing now.
I use my food scale and measure everything I eat
*MOST* of the things you eat. There are still quite a few generic entries, like "1 bagel" "2 slices of bread" "0.5 banana". Keep in mind that those slices are NOT created equal and need to be weighed too.
You also overate Friday and Saturday. I didn't go past that, but keep in mind that any surplus can wipe out a lot of deficit.
Most accurate plan of action would be to actually weigh your breads, fruits, packaged items, and to set yourself to sedentary or lightly active and eat back ~half of your exercise calories.
I really appreciate you being so helpful! I played with my settings & for not active & to lose .5 it had me at 1,660 but for lightly active and 1lbs a week it has me at 1,640. I’m thinking I will stay 1,500 the days I don’t work out & 1,600 the days I do, besides not measuring certain things, and over eating on Friday & Saturday do you see any other improvements I can make? I’ve been out of town at weddings 3 weekends in a row so I’m hoping not traveling for awhile will help! I do like to splurge a little on saturdays and I try to eat at maintainance. I tried to save calories throughout the week for it & I’m still 500 calories below my weekly goal via my weekly report! I’m assuming not weighing everything can be a factor?
Yes, not weighing everything is the biggest factor. I know your thread has kind of gone around in circles, but I would do a couple things if I were you:- Someone else suggested and I apologize I can't find it now - is it possible your tracker is logging arm swings as "steps". I know hair dressers are on their feet most of the day, but I can't imagine you are taking 10,000 steps a day around your station. Maybe try wearing your tracker on your belt loop one day and see if the reading is the same.
- Commit to weighing and logging every single thing for at least a couple of weeks. Whole food, packaged food, fruit, peanut butter, bread slices, everything. You don't "have" to be this exact long term, but you need to get a good idea of how many calories you are really eating.
- Set your goal to no more than 1 lb per week, you don't have enough to lose to aim for more than that.
- I wouldn't manually change my calories until you do steps 1-3 and know you are working with good solid data.
Good luck!9 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol
Pro tip, put your step tracker on your shoe instead of your arm if you're pushing a grocery cart. This works for being a hairdresser, too, so that you're not counting arm swings.
The problem with that tip is - they look for impact to see a step.
With it on your foot, it'll only see the impact of 1 foot - so you are getting only 1/2 your steps.
Better to put it on your body, where many models are designed and started out anyway.
They'll see both steps even if you have your hands locked on tight to shopping cart/stroller, ect.1 -
laura_johnson15 wrote: »Update: I’ve played around with my goal settings & I’ve changed my activity to “lightly active” and to lose 1lb a week which gave me 1,640 calories a day, when I changed it to not active & lose .5 a week it gave me 1,660 a day. My personal goal is to shoot for 1,500-1,600 a day!
My goal is to not eat any exercise calories!
How much do you exercise?
If 3 x 20 min weekly at something rather tame like yoga or stretching - no big whoop.
If much longer and harder and frequent - then not a good idea increasing your deficit even more by ignoring it.
Of all the estimates possible for exercise calorie burn - at least one is absolutely totally incorrect.
Zero.
You say you have Apple Watch syncing in through the Apple Health sync?
Then it works like the others (though it appears the daily adjustment doesn't give the specifics like other devices).
Which means while that adjustment may be put under the Exercise diary merely so MFP can do the math correctly with your eating goal - it is NOT just exercise.
In fact it could be an active day of NO exercise and big adjustment.
Or big workout and really lazy and no adjustment.
It's merely the difference between a better estimate and MFP's initial rough one.
If you want to trust what MFP was doing - then trust what MFP is trying to do now - correct itself.
Merely confirm the activity tracker is giving best estimate - suggestions for looping around belt or bra were great for that.
And if workouts are like lifting, which steps is obviously worthless for estimating calorie burn - you manually log Strength Training accurately for time for calories.1 -
Ready2Rock206 wrote: »laura_johnson15 wrote: »
So are you including your exercise in your activity level AND eating your exercise calories on top of it? Is that what I'm reading?? So you're basically double eating the exercise calories? If that is the case - you should either 1) not eat back the exercise calories or 2) drop your activity level to not include exercise (which is how MFP was designed) and add exercise calories separate.
I personally wouldn't consider 10,000 steps to be very active but that's just me - I'm pretty darn sedentary and I can manage 10,000 with little effort. I agree with the above, if you're not losing on 1700 you're definitely not going to lose by eating more.
ALL OF THIS and also the bolded. 10,000 Is me grocery shopping and making TWO trips to my car instead of one, and maybe taking a 30 minute walk.
Serious question, how are you getting that many steps grocery shopping.... I can go grocery shopping for an hour and a half and get like 2500 steps. I know I miss some by not swinging my arm but there's legit no way that what you listed would get me near 10,000. How do you do it?!?! lol
Pro tip, put your step tracker on your shoe instead of your arm if you're pushing a grocery cart. This works for being a hairdresser, too, so that you're not counting arm swings.
The problem with that tip is - they look for impact to see a step.
With it on your foot, it'll only see the impact of 1 foot - so you are getting only 1/2 your steps.
Better to put it on your body, where many models are designed and started out anyway.
They'll see both steps even if you have your hands locked on tight to shopping cart/stroller, ect.
I wear my fitbit on my ankle all the time and all my steps are counted accurately1
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