How many calories am I supposed to be eating???
Replies
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stacy26dallas wrote: »Ok, I have it on lightly active. So I should change that?
Based on your description, yes, you are above MFP's very active level. And based on your OP, your Fitbit does reflect that by giving you extra calories to eat.
If you change MFP to very active you may be able to plan your eating a bit better as you will start with more calories.
When you wake up in the morning you may see a negative adjustment which will disappear as you start moving more. After you stop work and power down for the evening you might see a drop in the calories that you can eat as Fitbit and MFP do their final reconciliation at midnight.
The totals (including exercise adjustment) at midnight will remain the same regardless of the activity level that you pick.
I changed it to very active and the calories jumped up 800. I'm already having trouble eating what I was already given. Today was 1,880 goal -2,277 food +2,892 exercise = 2,295 remaining.
By what everyone told me above I'm supposed to be eating half of my exercise calories so today I should have eaten 3,326. The highest I have eaten in the last 2 months is 2,800 which doesn't even reach that. Now my goal calories is 2680. That many plus half of my exercise is just way too much. Is there something I'm not understanding right?0 -
What's your current height and weight?0
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Lesscookies12 wrote: »What's your current height and weight?
She replied earlier:
5'10 @ 290lbs
With 8+ hours of a physically active job which involves moving product around and an average weight loss which is demonstrating a 1500+ Cal daily deficit to date.0 -
...0
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stacy26dallas wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stacy26dallas wrote: »LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Muscleflex79 wrote: »what are you doing that you think burns 1800-2600 calories through exercise???????
OP must be new to Fitbit, that number is likely to include her BMR so the numbers are her total calorie burn for the day.
My total calorie burn for the day is 4500 to 6500 a day
You're getting 1,870 from MFP and then getting additional adjustments from your Fitbit that bring your goal up to 4,500 to 6,500? If this is the case, it sounds like your Fitbit may not be properly measuring your activity. This is a very, very high adjustment.
On my days off it doesn't show anywhere near that usually doesn't add any exercise whatsoever because I'm just not that active but at work I am walking constantly for anywhere from 8 1/2 to 9 hours a day and that includes stocking and cleaning and down stacking and everything. I'm very very active at work. In the first six months of this job I lost 60 pounds alone without changing my diet any at all.
How many miles and steps is that? Something seems off, I'm on my feet for 11-12 hrs a day on a busy admissions ward plus walk to & from work and the most my TDEE gets to is 3500!stacy26dallas wrote: »Ok, this is what MyFitnessPal shows on one of my days:
15,744 Fitbit steps adjustment 2,649 calories
1,870 goal - 2,250 food + 2,649 exercise = 2,269 remaining.
I do not go to a gym to exercise because I have a very physically demanding job. I run a stock crew at a grocery store where we receive anywhere from 22 to 36 8ft tall pallets of freight a day that have to be broken down, stocked, and the store has to be cleaned etc etc etc
Sounds like fitbit is giving you your TDEE as your calorie adjustment. Yesterday I did 23085 steps, 8.84 miles and had a TDEE of 2942. I did get an adjustment of 1156 though.
Are you 5ft 10" and 290lbs?2 -
Yes, it is likely that the OPs tdee is not at the high side of 4500 to 6500 Cal a day and that a higher heart rate during the workday together with some overestimation of BMR by the base equations (which can happen when someone has higher than average fat reserves) is pushing that tdee number slightly higher.
However the OP's weight loss to date is quite consistent with a TDEE in the lower part of that equation so these numbers are far from smoke and mirrors.
The op has her own data and can compare her purported deficits with her trending weight and decide which percentage of her total Fitbit burn she trusts.
In any case the real issues that she needs to concentrate on is whether she feels that she's eating sufficiently to continue to put out the energy expenditures that she's putting out given what she's currently eating.
Her weight loss is at the limits of high-speed that she should be engaged in (see discussions about max % bodyweight lost per week <=1% and maximum deficit as % of TDEE should not really be exceeding 25%)
Given that her loss doesn't exceed these limits, this means that she can choose to continue at this speed or she can choose to eat more, relatively speaking, and engage in a slightly slower pace of weight loss.
My personal opinion is that she's losing slightly too fast but it's a well-known fact that I'm biased towards slower and consistent weight loss in order to give people time to sort through the various situations that make them overeat and to give them the time they need to develop eating, moving and exercising strategies that will work for them long term.
Both fortunately and unfortunately the OP is benefiting from a vigorous work environment which means that she's missing out on part of this education (one-trick Pony weight loss) and which reduces the learning benefits of a slower loss for her given that, as long as she continues working this way, she will have to continue to eat much more than your average person who works a more sedentary job.
Thus a future job change would require serious adjustments from her to avoid regain. And that may end up being a future challenge for her.
Other than the fact that there's a generic misunderstanding of what the Fitbit exercise adjustment actually means (it has nothing to do with exercise; it is just adjusting the mfp tdee to match the Fitbit TDEE at midnight), the general idea remains that the OP should eat a good proportion of the extra calories demonstrated by her Fitbit.
On average, given her 3 pound a week lost rate, I would probably add another 500 calories to what I'm eating hoping and expecting that it would slow down my weight loss while increasing my chances of long-term compliance.7 -
stacy26dallas wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »stacy26dallas wrote: »LivingtheLeanDream wrote: »Muscleflex79 wrote: »what are you doing that you think burns 1800-2600 calories through exercise???????
OP must be new to Fitbit, that number is likely to include her BMR so the numbers are her total calorie burn for the day.
My total calorie burn for the day is 4500 to 6500 a day
You're getting 1,870 from MFP and then getting additional adjustments from your Fitbit that bring your goal up to 4,500 to 6,500? If this is the case, it sounds like your Fitbit may not be properly measuring your activity. This is a very, very high adjustment.
On my days off it doesn't show anywhere near that usually doesn't add any exercise whatsoever because I'm just not that active but at work I am walking constantly for anywhere from 8 1/2 to 9 hours a day and that includes stocking and cleaning and down stacking and everything. I'm very very active at work. In the first six months of this job I lost 60 pounds alone without changing my diet any at all.
How many miles and steps is that? Something seems off, I'm on my feet for 11-12 hrs a day on a busy admissions ward plus walk to & from work and the most my TDEE gets to is 3500!stacy26dallas wrote: »Ok, this is what MyFitnessPal shows on one of my days:
15,744 Fitbit steps adjustment 2,649 calories
1,870 goal - 2,250 food + 2,649 exercise = 2,269 remaining.
I do not go to a gym to exercise because I have a very physically demanding job. I run a stock crew at a grocery store where we receive anywhere from 22 to 36 8ft tall pallets of freight a day that have to be broken down, stocked, and the store has to be cleaned etc etc etc
Sounds like fitbit is giving you your TDEE as your calorie adjustment. Yesterday I did 23085 steps, 8.84 miles and had a TDEE of 2942. I did get an adjustment of 1156 though.
Are you 5ft 10" and 290lbs?
I currently weigh 287 and I am 5 foot 10.
Yesterday my Fitbit read one floor, 8.52 Mi, 5076 calories, 418 minutes active, 18852 steps0 -
Yes, it is likely that the OPs tdee is not at the high side of 4500 to 6500 Cal a day and that a higher heart rate during the workday together with some overestimation of BMR by the base equations (which can happen when someone has higher than average fat reserves) is pushing that tdee number slightly higher.
However the OP's weight loss to date is quite consistent with a TDEE in the lower part of that equation so these numbers are far from smoke and mirrors.
The op has her own data and can compare her purported deficits with her trending weight and decide which percentage of her total Fitbit burn she trusts.
In any case the real issues that she needs to concentrate on is whether she feels that she's eating sufficiently to continue to put out the energy expenditures that she's putting out given what she's currently eating.
Her weight loss is at the limits of high-speed that she should be engaged in (see discussions about max % bodyweight lost per week <=1% and maximum deficit as % of TDEE should not really be exceeding 25%)
Given that her loss doesn't exceed these limits, this means that she can choose to continue at this speed or she can choose to eat more, relatively speaking, and engage in a slightly slower pace of weight loss.
My personal opinion is that she's losing slightly too fast but it's a well-known fact that I'm biased towards slower and consistent weight loss in order to give people time to sort through the various situations that make them overeat and to give them the time they need to develop eating, moving and exercising strategies that will work for them long term.
Both fortunately and unfortunately the OP is benefiting from a vigorous work environment which means that she's missing out on part of this education (one-trick Pony weight loss) and which reduces the learning benefits of a slower loss for her given that, as long as she continues working this way, she will have to continue to eat much more than your average person who works a more sedentary job.
Thus a future job change would require serious adjustments from her to avoid regain. And that may end up being a future challenge for her.
Other than the fact that there's a generic misunderstanding of what the Fitbit exercise adjustment actually means (it has nothing to do with exercise; it is just adjusting the mfp tdee to match the Fitbit TDEE at midnight), the general idea remains that the OP should eat a good proportion of the extra calories demonstrated by her Fitbit.
On average, given her 3 pound a week lost rate, I would probably add another 500 calories to what I'm eating hoping and expecting that it would slow down my weight loss while increasing my chances of long-term compliance.
I really do appreciate your advice. I love the detailed explanations. In the last month-and-a-half I've cut out fast food, and sweets except for the two pizzas and a couple of family dinners out. I was used to eating fast food, chips, and a lot of sweets at work daily. Now that I've cut out all of those foods, I've gotten used to around 2,500 calories at the most, and it just seems excessive to have to eat 3500. I'm eating when I'm hungry and not eating when I'm not hungry.1 -
stacy26dallas wrote: »You do want MFP to very active. You do want negative adjustments to YES so that you don't over eat on non active days.
15k steps In a very active environment with lifting etc and multiple steps not counted because they don't trigger a consecutive minimum means that MFP very active would underestimate your work day and would need an extra "exercise" adjustment to balance out.
The point is that you want to generate a good but not excessive deficit such that it is proportional to the total energy you expend and the amount of stored energy (fat) you want to lose.
You don't, generally speaking, want to be losing more than 1% of your bodyweight per week so don't go out there trying to generate a bigger deficit when you're already losing at a rate of over 2lbs a week.
If you're still obese consider 25% deficits your limits. Otherwise move down to 20% deficits.
Kick kitten job! I should sign up!
Ok, I have it on lightly active. So I should change that?
Lol, they wear me out, and pay me for it lol. Don't have to go to a gym lol
Ok, I just noticed part of your reply while I was rereading your post. You say to change negative adjustments to yes. Where do I find negative adjustments?0 -
stacy26dallas wrote: »Ok, I just noticed part of your reply while I was rereading your post. You say to change negative adjustments to yes. Where do I find negative adjustments?
Negative adjustments ONLY come into play when your activity level is set to above sedentary AND you do not move enough in a day to meet the requirements of the activity level you have selected.
In that situation the calories get removed from your goal.
But negative adjustments also mean that in the morning you're starting with a negative adjustment when you wake up (because you moved "less than expected" while you were sleeping, and in the evening if you go to bed before midnight you also lose calories because again you're moving "less than expected". MFP assumes that you move exactly the same over a 24 hour period. Fitbit and other fitness bands are more granular and able to haldle variables.
So. If you never fall below your MFP setting (I believe you're currently set as lightly active which covers between 5 and 8K steps for most people), then you don't need to worry about negative exercise adjustments. Just remember that a zero positive exercise adjustment probably indicates a "hidden" negative adjustment.
If you increase your MFP setting to very active (which is a hidden calorie increase of about 500 -- at a guess -- pushing you in line with the small slow down I was suggesting), that setting better matches your actual activity level which is higher than MFPs very active setting. Then, on a weekend day where you don't hit 13 to 15K steps you will probably see your day end with a small negative adjustment.
Things you may want to consider:
-- connect Fitbit.com to Trendweight.com. Weight entered in Fitbit pushes out to both trendweight and MFP. Trendweight is less useful to you right now but will become much more useful when your weight loss slows.
-- Yes, eating "healthier" means that you can create a larger deficit. Eating whole foods cooked from scratch can result in very filling meals for fewer calories than your typical deep fried pizza twinkies (And while I do admit to eating pizza, and twinkies, and deep fried, all logged on MFP, I've never, not even once, done this triple combo! :lol) .
However, on your particular case you don't need a larger deficit right now. You are losing at a more than adequate clip. Arguably at too fast of a clip increasing the potential of things such as galbladder stones.
What you do need is a plan for when things go south and you don't have a job that requires prodigious amounts of eating to keep up with it.
I would save my no-pizza, no cake, clean and healthy eating amunition for when you have to produce results absent your current mutli-hour burns. Reducing pizza and cake to fewer instances per week... good..... eliminating them? Not so sure.
Your current job requires substantially more calories than what your average person burns in a day. If you "barely" control your eating while continuing to work this way you WILL lose weight.
Now set up the pre-conditions to be able to maintain this weight.
Understand how many calories you actually need and that they are dependent on your level of activity.
Understand, if you can, the role of nutritious food and of treats.
Also understand that sometimes you just NEED the calories. Why? Because one thing you definitely don't want to do is habituate yourself to a very high level of exercise while under-eating considerably for that level of exercise especially once you get to closer to the mid/bottom overweight range.
You can make the same, I don't know, ok: peas in tomato sauce and onions and garic. One with barely any fat, one with a little bit of butter, and one with a cup of oil. You can then eat the whole pot and lose weight, eat the whole pot and maintain weight, or eat the whole pot and gain weight based on the additional calories. "same" food, same "volume". Different calories.
Anyway. This is becoming a much wider discussion and I've sort of lost my response focus a little bit 2 -
stacy26dallas wrote: »Ok, I just noticed part of your reply while I was rereading your post. You say to change negative adjustments to yes. Where do I find negative adjustments?
Negative adjustments ONLY come into play when your activity level is set to above sedentary AND you do not move enough in a day to meet the requirements of the activity level you have selected.
In that situation the calories get removed from your goal.
But negative adjustments also mean that in the morning you're starting with a negative adjustment when you wake up (because you moved "less than expected" while you were sleeping, and in the evening if you go to bed before midnight you also lose calories because again you're moving "less than expected". MFP assumes that you move exactly the same over a 24 hour period. Fitbit and other fitness bands are more granular and able to haldle variables.
So. If you never fall below your MFP setting (I believe you're currently set as lightly active which covers between 5 and 8K steps for most people), then you don't need to worry about negative exercise adjustments. Just remember that a zero positive exercise adjustment probably indicates a "hidden" negative adjustment.
If you increase your MFP setting to very active (which is a hidden calorie increase of about 500 -- at a guess -- pushing you in line with the small slow down I was suggesting), that setting better matches your actual activity level which is higher than MFPs very active setting. Then, on a weekend day where you don't hit 13 to 15K steps you will probably see your day end with a small negative adjustment.
Things you may want to consider:
-- connect Fitbit.com to Trendweight.com. Weight entered in Fitbit pushes out to both trendweight and MFP. Trendweight is less useful to you right now but will become much more useful when your weight loss slows.
-- Yes, eating "healthier" means that you can create a larger deficit. Eating whole foods cooked from scratch can result in very filling meals for fewer calories than your typical deep fried pizza twinkies (And while I do admit to eating pizza, and twinkies, and deep fried, all logged on MFP, I've never, not even once, done this triple combo! :lol) .
However, on your particular case you don't need a larger deficit right now. You are losing at a more than adequate clip. Arguably at too fast of a clip increasing the potential of things such as galbladder stones.
What you do need is a plan for when things go south and you don't have a job that requires prodigious amounts of eating to keep up with it.
I would save my no-pizza, no cake, clean and healthy eating amunition for when you have to produce results absent your current mutli-hour burns. Reducing pizza and cake to fewer instances per week... good..... eliminating them? Not so sure.
Your current job requires substantially more calories than what your average person burns in a day. If you "barely" control your eating while continuing to work this way you WILL lose weight.
Now set up the pre-conditions to be able to maintain this weight.
Understand how many calories you actually need and that they are dependent on your level of activity.
Understand, if you can, the role of nutritious food and of treats.
Also understand that sometimes you just NEED the calories. Why? Because one thing you definitely don't want to do is habituate yourself to a very high level of exercise while under-eating considerably for that level of exercise especially once you get to closer to the mid/bottom overweight range.
You can make the same, I don't know, ok: peas in tomato sauce and onions and garic. One with barely any fat, one with a little bit of butter, and one with a cup of oil. You can then eat the whole pot and lose weight, eat the whole pot and maintain weight, or eat the whole pot and gain weight based on the additional calories. "same" food, same "volume". Different calories.
Anyway. This is becoming a much wider discussion and I've sort of lost my response focus a little bit
Deep fried pizza Twinkies? LMBO. Just greatness1 -
Lesscookies12 wrote: »What's your current height and weight?
OP already answered your question a few posts back0
This discussion has been closed.
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